<title>Novel technique for measuring intermodal dispersion in optical fibers using the spectral interference in the Michelson interferometer configuration</title>

Abstract

The spectral interference between two modes of an optical fiber, which shows up as a periodic modulation of the source spectrum at its output, cannot be used to measure intermodal dispersion in the optical fiber when the period of modulation is too small to be resolved by a spectrometer. We proposed a novel measuring technique utilizing a tandem configuration of a dispersive Michelson interferometer and a two-mode optical fiber in which the intermodal interference can be restored, and consequently spectral interference fringes can be resolved, even if a low-resolution spectrometer is used. In the tandem configuration of the Michelson interferometer and the two-mode optical fiber, the optical path difference (OPD) in the Michelson interferometer is adjusted close to the group OPD between modes of the optical fiber so that the low-frequency spectral modulation that can be processed is produced. The feasibility of this technique has successfully been demonstrated in obtaining the wavelength dependence of the group OPD between two modes of the optical fiber. Using the Fourier transform method in processing the measured spectral modulations and subtracting the effect of the dispersive Michelson interferometer, the intermodal dispersion of the two-mode optical fiber has been obtained.