POLARIZATION EVOLUTION AND DISPERSION IN FIBERS WITH SPATIALLY VARYING BIREFRINGENCE

A procedure is described that allows one to solve the evolution equations in birefringent optical fibers by using repeated diagonalization. With this approach several practical problems are solved in a unified way. Included are evolution in twisted fibers, sinusoidally rocked fibers, and fibers with randomly varying birefringence. In the last case it is shown that a phenomenological model described by Poole and others applies to fibers whose axes of birefringence can take on any orientation.