Taking Polarization Dependent Measurements - Agilent Technologies HP E5574A User Manual

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Taking Polarization
Dependent
Measurements
This chapter provides information on how to measure the loss of an
optical component or the changes of the characteristics of an optical
coupler caused by different states of polarization.
When you start one of the applications
• Pol. Depend. Loss,
• PD Coupler Test,
• PDL / Insert. Loss,
the built-in polarization controller begins to sweep. The light
emerging from the optical output will pass through all states of
polarization.
What you measure is basically the difference between the highest
and lowest intensity caused by the continuously changing
polarization and received by the optical head(s). The OLA uses a
recursive algorithm which checks the PDL value and changes the
measurement window (that is, the number of samples to be taken)
so that the specified accuracy is achieved. The larger the PDL value
is, the longer the measurement takes.
This chapter is divided into two sections:
• The measurement of the Polarization Dependent Loss of passive
optical components.
• The measurement of the polarization dependent characteristics
of optical couplers.
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