Single shot polarimetry imaging of multicore fiber

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a real-time, single-shot polarimetry technique for monitoring and characterizing the polarization states of multiple cores in multicore fibers, enabling high-speed analysis of fiber polarization properties.

Contribution

The authors introduce a novel stress-engineered optical element method for simultaneous, real-time polarization monitoring of up to 180 fiber cores in multicore fibers.

Findings

Successfully monitored 180 cores simultaneously in real time.

Able to fully characterize polarization properties of individual cores.

Technique applicable to both conventional and polarization-maintaining fibers.

Abstract

We report an experimental test of single-shot polarimetry applied to the problem of real-time monitoring of the output polarization states in each core within a multicore fiber bundle. The technique uses a stress-engineered optical element together with an analyzer and provides a point spread function whose shape unambiguously reveals the polarization state of a point source. We implement this technique to monitor, simultaneously and in real time, the output polarization states of up to 180 single mode fiber cores in both conventional and polarization-maintaining bundles. We demonstrate also that the technique can be used to fully characterize the polarization properties of each individual ber core including eigen-polarization states, phase delay and diattenuation.