HIGH-RESOLUTION, NONMECHANICAL APPROACH TO POLARIZATION-DEPENDENT TRANSMISSION MEASUREMENTS

We have implemented an automated, nonmechanical approach to the measur ement of polarization dependent loss (and, equivalently, gain). We use a deterministic fixed-states method to derive Mueller matrix elements from intensity measurements at specific polarization states. Voltage- modulated liquid-crystal variable retarders set the polarization state s. Synchronous detection is employed to increase the signal-to-noise r atio (SNR) of the system and thereby allow measurement resolution to b etter than 0.001 dB, We present polarization-dependent loss measuremen ts from 0.0016 to 0.56 dB at 1550 nm to verify performance.