Environmental performance of fused PM fiber couplers for fiber gyro application

Abstract

Environmental test results for fused polarization maintaining (PM) fiber couplers fabricated with PANDA, bow-tie, and elliptically stressed fibers are reported. The packaged couplers are 32 mm long and 2.5 mm in diameter. Excess loss as low as 0.1 dB and polarization extinction ratio as high as 35 dB at the output ports of a coupler have been achieved. Robust couplers that are insensitive to mechanical and acoustic vibrations have been achieved through proper packaging.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>