Polarization vector conjugation in a photonic integrated circuit

We show how to perform polarization conjugation of light in a simple apparatus without any nonlinear optical materials, based on self-configuring Mach-Zehnder interferometers fed by a polarization splitter.

This allows us to completely and automatically remove the polarization variations on a single beam or mode propagating through an optical system with arbitrary birefringence, such as a conventional optical fiber, and compensate polarization variations experienced in the forward direction by propagating the conjugated beam back through the system and recreating the original polarization at the source.

We demonstrate this polarization conjugation in an optical fiber setup in different orientations with a measured polarization extinction ratio of -30 dB for the returned beam.