Compensation of thermally induced birefringence fluctuation of bow-tie fibres using an all-fibre Babinet compensator

Experimental results demonstrating the possibility of cancelling the thermal birefringence sensitivity of a highly birefringent fibre (bow-tie structure) using a compact fibre Babinet compensator are reported. Experimentally, this compensation corresponds to a temperature fluctuation of 2.3 degrees C for an 18 m fibre length, but can be easily scaled to a larger correction range by modifying the compensator geometry.