Distributed measurement of axes misaligned splicing and multi-stress in polarization-maintaining fiber based on polarization-OTDR

A novel scheme based on polarization-sensitive optical time-domain reflectometry (P-OTDR) for distributed measurement of multi-event in polarization-maintaining fiber (PMF) is proposed. The measurement principle is derived in detail based on the coupled mode theory, and the feasibility and repeatability of the scheme are verified experimentally. The distributed measurements of multi-section PMF axes misaligned splicing and multi-stress, which all lead to polarization mode coupling (PMC), are achieved with spatial resolution of 1 meter and positioning accuracy of 0.5 m.