Polarization dependence of the mean wavelength of Er-doped superfluorescent fiber sources
Dario G. Falquier, Michel J. F. Digonnet, Gordon S. Kino +1 more
Changes in the pump polarization state are shown to have a large effect on the mean wavelength of erbium-doped superfluorescent fiber sources due to polarization-dependent gain. This effect causes long-term drift as the fiber birefringence in the source changes over time. By depolarizing the pump, this effect is reduced to under 3 ppm, the noise level of our instrument. A second depolarizer is used to compensate for polarization-dependent transmission of the other source components, namely the WDM coupler and the isolator. The resulting source is insensitive to drifts in the fiber birefringence due to environmental effects.
Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE•Dec 21, 1998•0 citations