Optical fiber depolarizer using birefringence induced by proton implantation

An optical fiber depolarizer was developed utilizing birefringence that was induced by ion implantation into a silica-core optical fiber. The implanted ions were protons, and their acceleration energy was chosen such that the protons reach only the center of the optical fiber core. To evaluate the depolarization effect, the degree of polarization was measured for various transmitted polarized lights with different polarization states. Several proton-implanted fibers were spliced, holding their slow axes at a mutual angle at which the degree of polarization was lowest. As a result, an optical fiber depolarizer that can reduce the degree of polarization of incident light up to 0.6x10-2 was obtained by splicing three ion-implanted optical fibers. (author)