The response of polarization maintaining fibers upon temperature field disturbance

Abstract

The paper deals with the response of polarization maintaining (PM) fibers upon the variation of the temperature field, on condition both polarization axes are excited. Proper use can be applied in the area of optical fiber thermal field disturbance sensor. For a description of polarization properties the coherent Jones and Muller matrices were used. The Poincare sphere was applied to depict the development of the output of the polarization state of PM fibers for wavelengths 633 nm, 1310 nm and 1550 nm were arranged in a proposed sensor setup and were studied in the laboratory. A wide file of results containing dependencies of phase shift variations upon different configurations of measured PM fiber was obtained. The thermal field disturbance of the PM fiber was applied by an object with defined proportions and a defined range of temperatures. Dependencies of phase shift upon the object´s temperature, its distance from the fiber and exposed length of PM fiber were measured.