Distributed measurement of the polarization properties of a fiber using a backscatter technique

The new Polarization-OTDR technique theoretically and numerically described in this paper is based on the fact that the polarization state evolution of the backscattered signal gives information about the distribution of the fiber birefringence along its length. The knowledge of the full polarization properties of a single-mode optical fiber can be very useful in optical fiber sensing. The distributed measurement of the polarization properties can indeed allow to map external fields like strain and temperature and therefore makes possible the realization of full-distributed optical fiber sensors. There are also implications of this new method in the measurement of polarization mode dispersion in optical-fiber telecommunications systems. Simulations have been done and gave promising results.