Fully integrated optical polarimeter

A fully integrated optical (IO) polarimeter is presented, in which all purely optical functionalities are implemented in an IO circuit. This way, using IO polarisation converters, splitters, polarisers and sensing functions, a small and robust sensor is obtained. An analysis is presented of the effect of varying input signals, technological uncertainties and noise on the resolution of the sensor. The design of the complete polarimeter is given, together with a description of the device fabrication. Experimental results show an excellent agreement with the theoretical design. A fringe visibility of 0.80, phase sensitivity of 1096 ×2π and refractive index resolution of 1×10-6 have been obtained. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.