title: Observation of elliptical polarization rotation in a long twisted fiber.
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 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.
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Tokyo, 4-6-1 Komaba, Meguro-Ku, Tokyo 153-8904, Japan. tanemura@ginjo.rcast.u-tokyo.ac.jp
authors.forename: Takuo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tanemura
authors.forename: Kazuro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kikuchi