Novel Polarization-Rotating Fiber Resonator For Rotation Sensing Applications

A novel fiber resonator architecture is presented, employing a 90 deg rotation of the polarization within the birefringent fiber ring. In principle, this concept provides a temperature-independent separation of the resonance dips corresponding to the two resonant polarization states in the ring. The technique thus avoids gross thermally driven errors encountered in the use of ordinary polarization-maintaining rings for resonator fiber-optic gyros. Data from an experimental polarization-rotating ring at 1.3 μm wavelength demonstrates greatly improved thermal stability in the presence of typical imperfections of a practical device.