Abstract
With the growing interest in polarization-mode dispersion (PMD), the technique of polarization optical time domain re-flectometry (POTDR),1 has received attention because of its ability to measure birefringence characteristics along a fiber. PMD measurements using POTDR normally assume that the linear birefringence βL is the dominant birefringence in the fiber, such that the circular birefringence βL can be ignored, allowing the PMD due to βL to be inferred from the periodicity of the POTDR output. In this paper we induce circular birefringence by fiber twist and show that even small values of βC will have a considerable influence on the POTDR output and can lead to an overestimate of the fiber's PMD.
© 1996 Optical Society of America
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