Patent ID: 7969562

Claim:
A method of determining characteristics of a fiber comprising: measuring, at a computer, polarization mode dispersion (PMD) of an optical fiber; measuring a rotation angle; and determining birefringence autocorrelation length from the measuring of the PMD and the rotation angle, wherein the birefringence autocorrelation length, L F , is determined by the following equation: 〈 τ 2 〉 ⁢ 〈 θ F 2 〉 = 16 ⁢ β F 2 ⁢ L 2 ω 2 ⁡ [ 1 + ( 4 ⁢ π ⁢ ⁢ L F L t ) 2 ] , where τ represents a differential group delay, θ F represents a rotation angle, β F represents a fiber birefringence, L represents a fiber length, and ω represents a frequency and L t represents a spin period.