High Performance Fiber-Optic Depolarizer

"With the recent advent and use of polarization sensitive components in advanced fiber-optic systems, there is a need to develop a high performance depolarizer. In this proposal, LiteWeaver Technologies, Inc. (a spin-off of UHV Technologies, Inc.) proposesto use its innovative optical fiber materials technology developed under previous SBIR contracts to demonstrate the feasibility of a novel low-cost depolarizer device capable of achieving high degree of depolarization. This project will enable rapidtransition of UHV's innovative materials technologies into advanced devices needed in the rapidly growing fiber-optics area. In phase I, Penn State University will perform modeling and simulations to optimize the design of the test devices that will befabricated in LiteWeaver's newly constructed cleanrooms. We will test and evaluate the fabricated devices for insertion loss, polarization dependent loss, optical power stability and other optical properties.High performance depolarizers are currently notavailable, and thus, the successful fabrication of the proposed devices will enable many new system and sub-system architectures in the $15 billion fiber optics telecommunications and computing markets."