The strain sensitivity of a two-mode birefringent side-hole fiber is measured in the spectral domain. In a simple experimental setup comprising a broadband source, a polarizer, a two-mode birefringent side-hole fiber under varied elongations, an analyzer and a compact spectrometer, the spectral interferograms are resolved. These are characterized by the equalization wavelength at which spectral interference fringes have the highest visibility (the largest period) due to the zero group optical path difference between the fundamental, the LP01 mode and the higher-order, the LP11 mode. The spectral interferograms with the equalization wavelength are processed to retrieve the phase as a function of the wavelength. From the retrieved phase functions corresponding to different elongations of a two-mode birefringent side-hole fiber under test, the spectral strain sensitivity is obtained. Using this approach, the intermodal spectral strain sensitivity was measured for both x and y polarizations. Moreover, the spectral polarimetric sensitivity to strain was measured for the fundamental mode when a birefringent delay line was used in tandem with the fiber. Its spectral dependence was also compared with that obtained from a shift of the spectral interferograms not including the equalization wavelength, and good agreement was confirmed.
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