Patent ID: 6504604
Filing Date: 2003-01-07
Classification: G01M

Abstract:
An apparatus for measuring polarization mode dispersion in an optical fiber comprising:means for launching optical pulses into an optical fiber having known polarization states at each of two wavelengths; polarizers deployed along and optically coupled to the optical fiber; means for remotely measuring the transmission intensities of the optical pulses through said polarizers, said mean for remotely measuring including an optical tap for tapping a portion of each optical pulse from the optical fiber, an optical splitter coupled to said optical tap for splitting each of said tapped optical pulses into two optical sensing pulses, means for delaying said two optical sensing pulses with respect to each other, and reflectors for reflecting back along the optical fiber the two optical sensing pulses; and means for computing polarization mode dispersion based on the measured transmission intensities of the optical pulses for the known polarization states at each of the two wavelengths.