Studies of Phase-Conjugate Optical Device Concepts

Abstract

Abstract : This contract studies the phase-reversal property of optical phase conjugation for navigational and other device applications. The study focuses on the development of the phase-conjugate fiber-optic gyro and the generation of new device concepts. Although much attention is paid to the aberration correction property of phase conjugation, little attention is paid to the phase reversal property. The phase-reversal property has important applications in inertial navigation devices. The general problem for this program is to generate new device concepts using the phase-reversal property of phase conjugation. Polarization scrambling is a well-known source of noise and signal fading in fiber-optic gyros. Some gyros avoid this problem by using polarization-preserving fibers and couplers to decouple the polarization modes. This program studies a new approach in which polarization-preserving phase conjugation is used to correct for polarization scrambling without the need for polarization-preserving fibers and couplers. There are several areas of significant progress in the first year of this program that are directly related to the development of the phase-conjugate fiber-optic gyro. These include: First experimental observation of the phase-conjugate Sagnac phase shift; and First demonstrations of rotation sensing with a phase-conjugate gyro and with a self-pumped phase-conjugate fiber-optic gyro.