March 10, 2005 Hamburg, Germany -- Adaptif Photonics has announced the release of its A3300 polarization synthesizer, which the company says provides comprehensive polarization control and measurement capabilities in the microsecond range. According to the company, the device's unique capabilities enable researchers and engineers to control, stabilize, and measure polarization of optical signals across the entire range from 1.26 mm to 1.64 mm.
"Customers from various industries including sensors, communications, and homeland security have expressed excitement about the unique capabilities brought to them by the A3300," remarks Harald Rosenfeldt, Adaptif Photonics' CTO. "The device's high speed polarization management capabilities enable researchers and engineers to do measurements which they have not been able to do before."
According to a press release, the device's functions include the following:
* As an SOP switch, the device cycles through a sequence of states of polarization (SOPs) with a speed exceeding 40 KHz, which corresponds to a cycle time of less than 25 microseconds. The sequence of SOPs can be defined by the user using Stokes coefficients.
* As a polarization stabilizer, the device provides a stable output SOP even with high speed fluctuations and drifts of the input SOP.
* As a synchronous scrambler, the device switches the SOP of the output signal in a pseudo-random pattern with a cycling speed of up to 100 KSOPs/sec. During every switching operation, the device provides an electrical (TTL) trigger signal which allows synchronization of external processes. Alternatively, an electrical trigger input can be used to synchronize the scrambler with external events.
* As a traditional scrambler, the device varies the output SOP in a random way. Full coverage of the Poincaré Sphere is achieved within few ms.
* As a polarization analyzer, the device's high-speed capabilities allow more than 500,000 samples to be taken with a sample rate of up to 1 Mega-sample per second.
The company's polarizationNAVIGATOR PC software integrates support for these applications. The device is now available, and is on display at the company's booth #2912 at this week's OFC/NFOEC conference.