Broadband, high spectral resolution 2-D wavelength-parallel polarimeter for Dense WDM systems.

A broadband wavelength-parallel polarimeter has been designed or polarization measurements of multiple Dense WDM channels in parallel, which is based on a 2-D spectral disperser via a diffraction grating and a virtually-imaged phased-array (VIPA). At a hyperfine 2.8 GHz sub-channel spacing, we have demonstrated spectral polarization measurements of ~1500 sub-channels (~32 nm spectral range), with a potential total measurement time of less than 5 ms.