In this work, polarization attraction is meant to be the conservative nonlinear effect that transforms any arbitrary input state of polarization (SOP) of an intense optical signal beam fed to a nonlinear medium into approximately one and the same SOP at the output, provided that the medium is driven by a relatively stronger counterpropagating pump beam. Essentially, the combination of the nonlinear medium and the pump beam serves as a lossless polarizer for the signal beam. The degree of polarization of the outcoming signal beam can be close to 100% (90% in our present simulations). With an eye toward the development of such lossless polarizers for fiber optics applications, we theoretically study the polarization attraction effect in the optical fibers that are used in telecommunication links; i.e., randomly birefringent fibers. A generic model for the fiber-based lossless polarizers is derived, and a statistical scheme for the quantification of their performance is proposed. © 2010 Optical Society of America.

We thank J. Fatome for sending us a preprint of [16] prior to its publication. This work was carried out with support from the Italian Ministry of the University and Research (MIUR) through the PRIN 2008 project “Nonlinear cross-polarization interactions in photonic devices and systems” and the 2009 Italy–Spain bilateral initiative “Nonlinear Optical Systems and Devices” (HI2008-0075). JN acknowledges funding from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through an FPI fellowship (TEC2008-05791).

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