Patent ID: 7349077

Claim:
A method for measuring the polarization mode dispersion of an optical fiber, the method comprising the steps of: applying an optical signal to a first end of the fiber, coupling a second end of the fiber to an interferometer; generating by means of said interferometer at least one interferogram comprising at least a central peak and two side lobes having a determined information content; processing said interferogram in such a way as to measure the information content of at least one of said two side lobes; determining the polarization mode dispersion of the fiber and associating with the measurement of said information content a probability density function representative of the polarization mode dispersion of the fiber in the form of differential group delay by computing the deconvolution of the one side lobe with the central peak so that the deconvolution corresponds to the probability density of the differential group delay determined by the PMD of the fiber; and outputting the determined polarization mode dispersion.