Design considerations for a fibre-optic based polarimeter

A polarization modulation technique is presented which utilizes the manipulation of a wide band, incoherent source. An application to the measurement of sugar concentration is described. A conceptual fibre-optic sensor, based on the technique, is discussed. Particular attention is given to the design of a dielectric multilayer filter which will provide the means of dividing the spectrum into polarized and unpolarized components with the latter being used to calibrate the former.