Abstract

When birefringence induced through the optical Kerr effect in an unperturbed, weakly birefringent fiber is comparable with the natural fiber birefringence, polarization instability and asymmetry between the fast and slow fiber axes arise. A signature of the instability is that small changes in input intensity may result in large changes in intensity transmitted through a crossed polarizer at the fiber exit, leading to the possibility of substantial amplitude modulation (AM) gain.

© 1990 Optical Society of America