A single-mode optical fiber attenuator for intercomparison of attenuation

This paper presents the results of the investigation for developing an attenuator to be used in an intercomparison of attenuation values in single-mode optical fiber systems. The attenuation measurements in single-mode systems have a polarization-dependence problem corresponding to the mode-dependence problem in the multimode fiber systems. Therefore, an attenuator in which a small polarizer is placed was developed in order to obtain polarization-independent characteristics. If this attenuator is used as a transfer standard for the measurement comparison, any reference condition on polarization will not be required.<
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