Distributed PMD measurement with a polarization-OTDR in optical fibers

Author

Huttner, B. ; Gisin, B. ; Gisin, N.

Author_Institution

Group of Appl. Phys., Geneva Univ., Switzerland

Volume

17

Issue

10

fYear

1999

fDate

10/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1843

Lastpage

1848

Abstract

This paper presents a new method for the measurement of distributed polarization mode dispersion (PMD) in optical fibers. This method uses a polarization optical time-domain reflectometer (P-OTDR), and is based on a measurement of the degree of polarization of the backscattered light as a function of distance in the fiber. Both the average and the statistics of the degree of polarization are used to estimate the two relevant parameters for measuring PMD, namely, the beat length and the coupling length. At present, our P-OTDR gives qualitative results only. However, it enables to distinguish between high and low PMD sections in a long fiber link. This should already have practical applications, in particular for the characterization of installed fibers

Keywords

backscatter; light scattering; optical fibre communication; optical fibre dispersion; optical fibre polarisation; optical fibre testing; optical time-domain reflectometry; OTDR; backscattered light; coupling length; distributed PMD measurement; distributed polarization mode dispersion; installed fibers; optical fibers; polarization optical time-domain reflectometer; polarization-OTDR; Birefringence; Instruments; Length measurement; Optical fiber cables; Optical fiber communication; Optical fiber polarization; Optical fibers; Polarization mode dispersion; Statistical distributions; Time measurement;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Lightwave Technology, Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0733-8724

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/50.793764

Filename

793764