Abstract: The invention provides a measurement system to interrogate at least one birefringent optical sensor and a method to interrogate birefringent optical sensors at high speed and high resolution. The system and method detects, at least, a first and a second spectral feature that are polarization dependent, wherein the detected first and second spectral features correspond to different responses of at least one birefringent optical sensor.

Abstract: The invention provides a measurement system to interrogate at least one birefringent optical sensor and a method to interrogate birefringent optical sensors at high speed and high resolution. The system and method detects, at least, a first and a second spectral feature that are polarization dependent, wherein the detected first and second spectral features correspond to different responses of at least one birefringent optical sensor.

Abstract: One aspect of the invention is a homodyne coherent receiver, suitable for high speed phase shift keying (PSK), the receiver comprising a receiver for receiving an incoming signal having a carrier-less modulation format, a signal conditioning sub-system that generates a carrier component from the incoming signal, and an optical injection phase locked loop (OIPLL) that phase locks the generated carrier component of the incoming signal. Embodiments of the invention may enable DSP free detection of optical PSK signals, which may be required in next generation fiber transmission systems and in optical constellation analyzer systems. In addition, embodiments of the invention may provide improved receiver sensitivity performance comparing to prior art systems using direct detection schemes. Also, embodiments of the invention may be advantageous in terms of cost and energy efficiency.