Measurement of birefringence correlation length in long, single-mode fibers

Abstract

Measurements of birefringence correlation length performed on long single-mode telecommunication fibers are reported. The proposed technique relies on the statistical properties of the backscattered-field polarization, which was measured by means of a polarization-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometer. Experimental results are reported that show good agreement with the underlying theory based on stochastic differential equations.