In-Line Liquid Crystal Microcell Polarimeters for High Speed Polarization Analysis
01 July 2003
We report a type of high speed, liquid crystal microcell polarimeter that is built directly between the tips of optical fibers. When combined with optimized nematic liquid crystal materials, these compact (2.5cm x 0.5cm x 0.5cm) devices offer excellent optical properties and continuous, high speed operation at >2 kHz with moderately low operating voltages.
They require no bulk optical elements, and they show excellent performance when implemented for measurement of degree of polarization in 10 Gb/s test systems. Polarimeters based on this design have promising potential applications in polarization analysis for high speed optical communication systems.