| Summary: | Recent developments in specialist fibers for device applications has resulted in simultaneous progress in measurement techniques to characterize these fibers but, while there is much literature concerning such fibers and devices, few papers directly address the measurement problems. Methods developed to characterize birefringent fibers (both those with high circular or linear birefringence and those with negligible intrinsic birefringence) are presented and their relative merits discussed. Fibers with high nonlinear coefficients exhibit interesting optical phenomena and methods have been developed to determine second harmonic, Pockels and Kerr effects, parametric phenomena and the Verdet constant of silica and higher loss, nonsilica fibers. Fibers containing rare-earth ions are of interest both as active (laser and amplifiers) and passive systems. Not only have techniques been developed to characterize these devices but also conventional methods have been modified to quantify dopant parameters within the fiber. Techniques for the measurement of the diverse properties of all these different fibers are presented with results and, where appropriate, the problems with their characterization are discussed.
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