Removing left-right asymmetry in a Sagnac interferometer applied to cancel its reflectance dependence on birefringence

Opt Lett. 2013 May 1;38(9):1536-8. doi: 10.1364/OL.38.001536.

Abstract

We present a left-right symmetry restoring method, which removes the detrimental birefringence in the single-mode fiber Sagnac interferometer, achieved with the aid of a half waveplate oriented at a specific angle. We show theoretically and demonstrate experimentally that adding a π-shift between clockwise and counterclockwise propagating, horizontally (in fiber loop plane) polarized field components, the Sagnac loop mirror's reflection becomes independent on birefringence of an element placed in the loop.