Single-Ended Measurement of Polarization-Dependent Loss in an Optical Fiber Link

A single-ended technique is proposed to measure the global polarization-dependent loss (PDL) in an optical fiber link. In this technique, the terminal fiber section of the fiber link under test is required to be purely birefringent. Then, the global PDL will be determined by the maximum round-trip PDL in the terminal fiber section. In practice, the round-trip PDL can be obtained by measuring Rayleigh backscattering optical powers corresponding to four specific input polarization states. Experimental results confirm the validity of the proposed technique.