Complete determination of the stress tensor of a polarization-maintaining fiber by photoelastic tomography.

ABSTRACT

The use of photoelastic tomography to obtain the two-dimensional axial stress profile of a polarization-maintaining (PM) fiber with high resolution and accuracy is described. We illustrate, for what is believed to be the first time, the two-dimensional distribution of the local principal axes of the fiber's cross section, which is directly related to the fiber's PM ability. We demonstrate that the stress-induced anisotropy as well as all the stress tensor components of the fiber can be fully determined.