Six-port technology has been well known for its unique ability to accurately measure the reflection coefficients of a microwave network. We have improved six-port measurement technique at microwave frequencies essentially reducing measurement errors and simplifying an architecture of an automatic network analyzer.
Despite successful application of six-port technology at microwaves frequencies, the six-port technique still has not gained ground in the optical measurement and instrumentation. We have developed our novel approach to six-port optical measurements in fiber-optic network communication where there is an increasing need for making precise amplitude and phase measurements for dense-wavelength-division-multiplexing (DWDM) devices, which must satisfy stringent requirements in amplitude and phase response.
