• Highest accuracy in a single sweep. No averaging over multiple sweeps required
• No limitation of optical path length of component
• 1240 nm to 1650 nm operating wavelength range
• 1 MHz maximum sampling rate
• 0 ps to 1000 ps DGD measurement range
• 0 ps to 300 ps PMD measurement range
• 1.5° SOP measurement uncertainty
• ±2% DOP measurement uncertainty

The N7788C optical component analyzer provides both polarization control and analysis functions in one instrument for flexible laboratory use. The N7788C is especially used in combination with a tunable laser for measuring how an optical component changes the SOP of a signal. This measurement uses the unique single-sweep polarization dependent method to determine the parameters polarization mode dispersion (PMD) or differential group delay (DGD) and polarization dependent loss (PDL), based on a generalization of the standardized Jones Matrix Eigenanalysis method (JME).

For these spectral measurements of polarization dependent loss and dispersion, the N7788C is combined with a tunable laser and a new N7700 software engine. The LS engine, part of the Photonic Application Suite, now supports these measurements of wavelength-dependent DGD and PMD. This mode can be licensed with N7700103C PMD.

Parameters provided by this measurement include:

• DGD/PMD
• PDL
• Power/loss
• TE/TM-loss
• Jones matrices
• Mueller matrices
• 2nd-order PMD (depolarization + PCD)

General polarimeter and polarization control functions of the N7788C are supported by the built-in user interface.

The instrument comes in a compact form factor of just one rack unit height, with LAN and USB interfaces.