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Abstract

A vector representation of polarization dependent loss (PDL) is introduced so that the true PDL of a composite optical system having more than one optical component in combination may be measured using a Mueller Matrix method. An optical source having four input states of polarization is measured at each polarization state to generate the first row of values for the Mueller Matrix for the optical source alone derived from the transmission coefficients. The first row of values is converted into a PDL vector for the optical source alone. The output of the composite optical system having the optical source as input is measured at each polarization state to generate the first row of values for a Mueller Matrix for the composite optical system including the optical source. The first row of values is converted into a PDL vector for the composite optical system in combination with the optical source. The absolute value of the PDL for the composite optical system is determined as the absolute value of the vector difference between the two PDL vectors. By representing the PDL of each optical component in an optical system as a vector, the behavior of the optical system may be approximately predicted by the vector combination of the individual PDL vectors.

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