SYSTEMATIC METHOD FOR THE ANALYSIS OF OPTICAL-FIBER CIRCUITS

The authors have developed a systematic and simple method of analysis for deriving steady-state transfer characteristics between input and o utput optical wave vectors, or powers, of linear optical fibre circuit s formed from a variety of linear optical components. The analysis met hod is based on the Jones matrix representation and a functional block diagram description of fibre circuits. Using this method, the analysi s of the optical fibre circuits becomes a series of well defined syste matic procedures. This method provides a convenient route to determini ng the transfer function of relatively complex fibre circuits and can be viewed as a further development of the well-known Jones calculus. I t has been applied to analyse a number of optical fibre circuit struct ures, such as Sagnac fibre optic interferometers, fibre Fabry-Perot re sonators, fibre optic ring resonators and a novel enhanced sensitivity optical fibre gyroscope.