A division-of-aperture in-line fiber-optic photopolarimeter using a 1 by 5 fused fiberoptic star coupler has been demonstrated. All five output beams of the star coupler have nearly identical states of polarization except that they have unknown orientations of optical axes. The photopolarimeter output is taken from one of the star coupler output beams, whose state of polarization is measured from the other four beams. The construction of the in-line photopolarimeter is identical to that of conventional ones except that the linear and circular analyzers are aligned with the respective beam optical axes determined from calibration. Such a system is compact, light weight, efficient, robust and inexpensive. The new photopolarimeter agrees within one percent with a HP 8509A off-line photopolarimeter.
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