| 摘要 |
PURPOSE:To control the direction of exit light while maintaining the exact function of the wavelength plate by forming one end face of a polarization maintaining optical fiber to a sloped face inclusive of any of the optical axes thereof and adjusting the fiber length to a prescribed length. CONSTITUTION:The polarization maintaining optical fiber 11 has the 45 deg. sloped face 11a inclusive of any of the optical axes thereof and has the other end face 11b perpendicular to the axial direction of the fiber. A light exit face 11c is formed by plane polishing, etc., to the side face (rear face) of the face 11a. Further, the length L' from the face 11a to the end face 11b is so set that the sum of the phase difference generated between the two orthogonally polarized light rays by double refraction and the phase difference between the (p) polarized light and the (s) polarized light generated by the total reflection at the face 11a attains 2npi. The two orthogonally polarized light components in the exit light are thereby enabled to maintain the desired phase difference and, therefore, the direction of the exit light can be converted to the direction perpendicular to the fiber while the exact function of the wavelength plate is maintained. |
