Control and Manipulation of Light

The four fundamental properties of light are frequency, power, polarization and phase. The phase indicates the relative position of a light wave while polarization represents the oscillation direction of the electro-magnetic field. 

Luna offers a full suite of polarization instruments and modules for complete optical polarization management solutions, including polarization controllers, switchers, trackers, scramblers and generators.

Using the patented fiber-squeezing technology, which has many advantages over other technologies including lossless operation, any given state of polarization can be converted to any desired polarization state. 

Additionally, the control of optical phase and delay is a crucial capability for many fiber optic systems, including interferometric based measurement systems.  Luna supplies many optical delay/phase control products for high precision optical path length adjustments, including interferometric based measurement systems.

Fiber Squeezing vs. Magneto Optic Crystal Technology for Optical Polarization

Luna has two technologies to manipulate optical polarization. The fiber squeezing technology uses electrically driven piezo actuators to apply mechanical force on fiber. The applied force alters the local birefringence, and hence, deterministically controls the state of polarization. Any state on the Poincare sphere can be reached with fiber squeezing technology. To achieve high switching speed, accuracy and repeatability, Luna developed the all-solid-state technology which uses magneto-optic polarization rotators to generate up to six distinctive polarization states uniformly across the Poincare sphere. It should be noted that the magneto optic crystals technology is considered a polarization state generator rather than a complete polarization controller because of the limited number of output polarization states that can be achieved.