Abstract

The transmission properties of a two-mode system with uniform mode coupling are analyzed in detail in the time domain. The impulse response of the system is found analytically taking mode dispersion and frequency-dependent mode coupling into account. By calculating the pulse response when the system is excited with a Gaussian pulse, the effective mode dispersion and energy coupling are determined. Through this analysis it is shown that the coupling will introduce an oscillating tail on the excited mode with a duration equal to the polarization-mode dispersion and a magnitude determined by the ratio between the birefringence and the mode-coupling coefficient. For polarization-preserving fibers this tail may be several nanoseconds long, but the magnitude is likely to be small. The presence of mode coupling reduces the effective mode dispersion but causes the state of polarization to be unstable. Finally it is shown that material dispersion will not affect the polarization-handling properties of the system but leads to oscillating responses from the individual modes.

© 1983 Optical Society of America

Influence of polarization-mode coupling on the transmission bandwidth of single-mode fibers

C. J. Nielsen
J. Opt. Soc. Am. 72(9) 1142-1146 (1982)

Single-mode, single-polarization fibers made of birefringent material

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David Yevick and Bjorn Stoltz
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