Analysis on the polarization property of the eigenmodes in a nonplanar ring resonator

Abstract

Based on the theory of the Abeles matrix, the reflections from the multilayer dielectric mirrors in a nonplanar ring resonator are discussed in detail considering the imperfect layer thickness and the incident angle errors. The polarization of Gaussian beams in nonplanar ring resonators are analyzed by using a statistical method and the way to analyze the stability of a nonplanar ring resonator in the perspective of polarization is also presented. The results show that a nonlanar ring resonator with a finite mode size may not have the reasonable polarization performances sometimes; the eigenmodes might be right- and left-handed elliptically polarized instead of circularly polarized, and they also have different ellipticity and round trip losses, which are critical for a nonplanar ring resonator. These interesting findings are important to the cavity designs of ring resonators with a nonplanar structure.

Statistical analysis on the optical axis perturbation in nonplanar ring resonators

“…The ring laser gyroscopes with nonplanar structure can improve the measurement precision without using any additional intra-cavity elements (such as quarter crystal) which can provide the bias of a gyro but induce additional errors (such as the loss, the scattering etc. ), and they are motivating ongoing interest in inertial navigation systems (INS) community [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. The resonator is the core component of the gyroscope whose measurement precision can be affected by the resonator's structure parameters, and these parameters can also be affected by the temperature, the errors during the processing and adjustment of the resonator, etc.…”