Three types of products in particular are used to adjust and control the polarization in optical fibers:

• Polarization controllers are required to affect the polarization of light in optical fibers. These controllers change the polarization alignment in a targeted manner. Both deterministic and relative polarization controllers are available.
• Our polarization scramblers mix the polarization to minimize the polarization-dependent effects in measurement applications.
• Polarization stabilizers minimize fluctuations in the input polarization and stabilize polarization signals at the output.

The polarization synthesizer/analyzer PSY-201 is a deterministic polarization controller. It can generate any state of output polarization, regardless of the current input polarization. The PSY-201 also stabilizes the state of output polarization and compensates for fluctuations in the input polarization. The polarization synthesizers can also be used as polarization scramblers.

The polarization controllers MPC-201, MPC-202 and MPC-203 manipulate the state of polarization in a targeted manner and make the following modes of operation available:

• Polarization scrambler with a different speed and waveform, including tornado scrambling mode with near-uniform distribution of the polarization alteration rate
• Polarization controller
• Polarization modulation
• Triggered generation of random polarization states

The MPC-202 is optimized for testing coherent receivers and especially for testing the setting time of the polarization tracking of optical transponders or transmission systems. The MPC-202 facilitates a scrambling mode with near-uniform distribution of the polarization alteration rate (tornado scrambling mode) at a polarization alteration rate of up to 360 krad/s.

The MPC-203 is a high speed multifunction polarization controller. Its avanced tornado scrambling mode leads to a variable high speed polarization scrambling up to 780,000 revolutions/s.

To minimize the disruptive polarization-dependent effects in optical fibers, the polarization states of the guided light must be mixed in a targeted manner. This task is carried out using polarization scramblers by converting a fixed polarization state to permanently-changing polarization states. Thus, General Photonics refers to its polarization scrambler as the PolaMIX^TM.

Polarization stabilizers are used to minimize polarization fluctuations. Different models are available that vary in particular in their number of ports.

This device detects fluctuations in the input polarization and regulates the fluctuations to supply a stabilized signal in the output port.