Abstract

The intensity-dependent polarization rotation caused by the self-induced nonlinear birefringence in a long twisted fiber is studied numerically and experimentally. By using a $1\mathrm{km}$ length of twisted fiber, we show that the effect of ellipse rotation accumulates monotonically as if the fiber were perfectly isotropic. Such behavior cannot be observed in a typical nontwisted fiber with randomly varying birefringence and is a unique feature of the twisted fiber, in which the large circular birefringence plays an essential role of preserving the handedness of elliptical polarization. We demonstrate a novel Faraday-mirror configuration to ensure automatic polarization alignment, which is directly applicable to achieving a simple and stable intensity discriminator.

© 2006 Optical Society of America

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