Mitigation of Polarization-Induced Fading in Optical Vector Network Analyzer for the Characterization of km-scale Space-Division Multiplexing Fibers

Abstract: We propose an optimized optical vector network analyzer with automatic polarization control to stabilize the reference arm polarization throughout the sweep range. We demonstrate this technique, successfully removing the polarization-induced fading and measurement distortions in insertion loss by characterizing a 10 km multi-core fiber.