Temperature Stability of a Hybrid Polarization-Maintaining Photonic Crystal Fiber Resonator and Its Application in a Resonant Fiber Optic Gyro

Abstract

A fiber ring resonator (FRR) constructed using a Panda polarization-maintaining fiber does not effectively solve the problem of temperature-related polarization fluctuation, which considerably limits the detection accuracy of the resonant fiber optic gyro. The polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fiber (PM-PCF) can improve the thermal stability of the FRR. In this study, a structure that can simultaneously detect the polarization fluctuation of two FRRs is designed. We analyzed and verified the polarization phase shift errors of these two types of fibers, which are caused by the thermally induced birefringence changes. Theoretical simulation and experimental results confirm that a PM-PCF can be used to optimize the FRR, which can effectively suppress the polarization fluctuation.