Pulse polarization switching is an important new method to eliminate the polarization-induced fading (PIF) in the interferometric fiber sensing system. An integrated Ti-indiffused LiNbO3 Mach–Zehnder modulator is used to achieve high-speed switch of the polarization state by switching the voltage between two appropriate voltages applied to the modulator. The stability of the polarization switching is affected by environmental factors, especially the temperature. In this paper, the stability of the polarization switching is studied. Firstly, the structure of the modulator and the principle of the polarization switching are introduced. Secondly, a feedback control method to overcome the switch instability is proposed. The output polarization state could be obtained by monitoring the intensity of the output light. Finally, the high-speed and high-accuracy stable switching between two orthogonal polarization states is realized using this method and experimentally demonstrated.

Date Published: 29 August 2013
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 8914, International Symposium on Photoelectronic Detection and Imaging 2013: Fiber Optic Sensors and Optical Coherence Tomography, 891410 (29 August 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2034547

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8914:
International Symposium on Photoelectronic Detection and Imaging 2013: Fiber Optic Sensors and Optical Coherence Tomography
Yunjiang Rao, Editor(s)