Polarimetric optical fiber refractometer

Abstract

An optical fiber refractometer based on a photometric return-path birefringence sensor is proposed. For measuring the refractive index, the phase shift between polarization components on total internal reflection inside a refractometric prism is used. Several kinds of refractometric prism are described. It is shown that a refractive-index sensitivity of 0.0001 and higher for a wide range of index values is attainable.