Patent ID: 6762829
Filing Date: 2004-07-13
Classification: G01J,G01M,G01N

Abstract:
A method of measuring a polarization and wavelength dependent property of an optical device comprising the steps of:(i) passing an optical signal through the device; (ii) selecting four unique states of polarization of the optical signal, at least one of the unique states of polarization being elliptical; (iii) measuring the optical signal leaving the device and determining the insertion loss of the device for each of the four states of polarization and at each of a plurality of wavelength of the optical signals; (iv) using the four insertion loss measurements for each of the four different states of polarization at each wavelength to compute the four elements of the first line of the Mueller matrix for each wavelength; and (v) using the Mueller matrix elements, computing a set of insertion loss variations with wavelength for the device for each of a multiplicity of input states of polarization substantially covering the PoincarÃ© sphere, and computing said polarization and wavelength dependent property from the computed sets of insertion loss variations.