Abstract

Fabrication method of a fiber optic electric field sensing probe using polarization maintaining fiber (PMF) is described including a birefringent axes aligning system. The sensing probe is basically a fiber-coupled Fabry-Perot resonator where a thin birefringent wafer of LiTaO₃ with an external cavity is mounted onto the end of PMF. An optical wave from a superluminescent laser diode after a linear polarizer parallel to the slow axis of the PMF is made to enter the LiTaO₃ crystal with polarization parallel to its extraordinary axis and the reflected optical wave is detected after passing through a polarization analyzer. By measuring a minimum value of a ratio of the reflected optical power at 90° to that of 0° of analyzer, we successfully demonstrated that the angular accuracy of the slow axis of the PMF with respect to the extraordinary axis of the LiTaO₃ can be evaluated. Aligning both axes precisely, the electro-optic effect associated with LiTaO₃ and polarization is optimized with greater stability. Long term stability of the fabricated PMF sensing probe was enhanced by about 3 times compared to that of a conventional single mode fiber one. As a result of uncertainty analysis, the method we proposed has an overall angular uncertainty of 1° when the used fiber optic components have polarization angle tolerance of 1°.

Elasto-optic alignment of birefringent axes in polarization-holding optical fiber

S. L. A. Carrara, B. Y. Kim, and H. J. Shaw
Opt. Lett. 11(7) 470-472 (1986)

Polarization insensitive electro-optic probe using birefringence-free interferometric modulation

Seok Kim, Young-Pyo Hong, and Dong-Joon Lee
Opt. Lett. 44(11) 2895-2898 (2019)

Self-aligning polarization strategy for making side polished polarization maintaining fiber devices

Xinyue Wang and Ziyu Wang
Opt. Express 18(1) 49-55 (2010)

Birefringent optical fiber with dispersive orientation of polarization axes

Karol Tarnowski, Alicja Anuszkiewicz, Krzysztof Poturaj, Pawel Mergo, and Waclaw Urbanczyk
Opt. Express 22(21) 25347-25353 (2014)

Parametric analysis of elasto-optic birefringent axis alignment in eccentrically coated polarization-maintaining optical fiber

Grieg A. Olson and Jerry L. Metcalf
Appl. Opt. 31(9) 1234-1238 (1992)