Abstract
As the component technology for optical telecommunication systems advances, more and more mechanisms that influence the performance are discovered. After the problems of modal and chromatic dispersion were solved, polarization effects became to play an important role. Due to the polarization transmission properties of optical devices the magnitude and phase of the lightwave's electric-field components are changed depending on the state of polarization of the lightwave. Fiber-optic polarimetric sensors make constructive use of these polarization effects to measure physical quantities like temperature, strain, pressure and electric currents. In other cases, like long-haul telecommunication systems, polarization effects will result in shorter transmission distances. Both, the positive and negative effects of polarization, require measurement techniques to analyze the component's polarization properties. In this paper, a fiber-optic polarization synthesizer which is able to generate any desired state of polarization is described. Using a novel self-calibration procedure, this setup is completely self-supporting. The construction of the polarization synthesizer will be explained in detail and it will be shown, how this setup allows a simple measurement of the polarization properties of optical devices.
