Phase noise elimination in frequency sweeping interferometry based on a common-path interferometer.

Abstract

We propose a common-path interferometer (CPI) method to suppress the ambient and laser phase noise in frequency sweeping interferometry. The CPI realizes the multiplexing of the main and auxiliary interferometer to ensure the common-mode characteristic of the interference phase noise, which can be eliminated by signal mixing. In experiments, we obtain a dynamic range of up to 110 dB. Compared with the compensation method using a separated auxiliary interferometer, the CPI method improves the dynamic range by 10 dB and is immune to ambient noise. The proposed method enables high-precision distributed polarization measurements of optical fibers and devices.