Quaternion approach to study of the polarization maintaining optical fibers

In this paper, the progress of the stress sensor based on Polarization Maintaining Fiber (PMF) is reviewed, and point out that the joint multi-effect of internal and external effects in PMF based sensor is a basic phenomenon, and the study on multi-effect have important academic value and application prospects. A quaternion approach to study on the multi-effects of PMF sensor is proposed, and the cosines law on the multi-effects is presented and proved. Theoretical analysis and simulation based on the theorem are given. The experiments to demonstrate the multi-effect is designed and related results proved the correctness of the cosines law of joint multi-effect.