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    1981 - Opt and Laser Tech - Roland - Optical Gyroscopes 1

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    Optical gyroscopes J.J. ROLAND, G.P. AGRAWAL Recent advances in optical and laser technology have made it possible to develop sensitive and accurate optical gyroscopes. Various kinds of optical gyroscope are reviewed with particular attention paid to the ring laser gyro- scope, The factors limiting its performance, mainly the problem of locking, and means devised to improve upon it are discussed. ‘Soon after the advent of laser, its use for constructing a rotation sensing device was suggested! and experimentally demonstrated.? Three kinds of optical gyroscope, all based fon the same operating principle, the Sagnac effect? have been proposed. They will be referred to as the fibre gyro- scope, the passive ting-esonator gyroscope and the ring laser gyroscope (RLG). The RLG was proposed first* and appears to most promising, At present, the RLG is capable of sensing rotation rates down to 10°?* ht, A number of technological advancements have brought them up to a stage where, instead of being a laboratory curiosity, their use in an inertial navigation system isa reality. Compared to its mechanical counterpart, the RLG offers the advantage of being a strapped-down device at alower cost and weight, Furthermore, since it contains no spinning mass, it responds instantaneously and is insensitive to acceleration, This review article describes how the continuing growth in ‘optical and laser technology has produced a sensitive and accurate rotation sensing device. After a brief exposure of the ‘operating principle of three kinds of optical gyroscopes, attention is focused on the RLG. Its advantages and factors limiting its performance are briefly discussed. Particular attention is paid to the problem of locking which gives rise oa ‘dead zone” and makes the RLG insensitive to low rotation rates. Various methods used to overcome the problem of locking are described and compared, Some ‘echnological details are presented in the last section, Operating principle: the Sagnac effect All optical gyroscopes are based on the same operating Principle ~ the Sagnac effect.” In simple terms it can be Stated as Follows: two counter-propagating coherent light waves experience a relative phase difference on a complete {tip around a rotating closed path. This is proportional to the rotation rate. A rigorous approach to the Sagnac effect requires the use ofthe general theory of relativity and is based on the fact that, with respect to inertial space, two ‘ounter-propagating light waves take different times to complete a trip. The time difference Ay for an arbitrary closed path is given’ by At = 44D je? wM ‘Tho authors are at Quantel Laser Gyro civision, 17 Avenue de Atlantique, 2191400 Orsay, France, Recsived 12 March 1981. where A is the area enclosed by the closed path, 9 is the rate of rotation along an axis perpendicular to the plane of A, and cis the velocity of light. The time difference intro- duces an optical path difference between two waves of AP = edt = 440fe @ ‘This manifests itself as a shift in the fringe pattern when the device is used as an interferometer (Fig. 1) It is apparent from equation (2) that a Sagnac interfero- meter is not a very sensitive device to measure 2. For A= 1m? and 221°, AP=2x 107 mand is too small co be measured by interferometric methods. Michelson and Gale? in 1925 used the Sagnac interfero- ‘meter to measure the earth’s rotation with a rectangular cavity of A &2 x 10° m?. Cavities of such dimensions are clearly impractical for an optical gyroscope. Three diffe- rent approaches have been proposed to overcome this difficulty. Optical fibre gyroscope Here the idea is to increase the surface area A without increasing the interferometer size through the use of an ‘multiple-turn fibre.§ The basic configuration is very close to the Sagnac interferometer and is shown in Fig. 2. For 2 ‘Netumn fibre loop of radius R,A = NaR® =RL/2 where L is Sauce Fig, 1 Ciuc Sagnac inerferameter to measure the rotation rate 2. Tha clockwise and counterclockwise waves Intorfare to produc tha feinge partern which shift for 2. (0030-3992/8 1/050239-06 $02.00 © 1981 IPC Business Press Lid OPTICS AND LASER TECHNOLOGY . OCTOBER 1981 230 where N= fAfdtis the net number of counts, 0 = fy dr is the angle through which the device has been rotated. K isa scale factor. The high sensitivity of RLG stems from very high values of K; for an equilateral triangular cavity with perimeter P= 45 em and = 0.633 jum, K == 1.37 x 10° rad“. One count corresponds to @ = 1.5 arcs. Ring laser gyroscope performance At the moment the RLG appears to offer the best perfor- ‘mance of the three kinds of optical gyroscope. It is, however, by no means free from error sources which limit its perfor- ‘mance? A substantial research effort, in Europe as well as in the United States, has been directed at improving RLG performance, The error sources and the methods adopted to overcome them are mentioned briefly. For an ideal RUG with strictly independent travelling waves the response curve, a graph of I versus 0 or equivalently Af ‘versus @, should be a straight line passing through the origin (ig, Sa), In an actual RLG, the defect of optical components and the presence of an active gain medium lead to various ‘errors mechanisms which modify equation (4) so that it takes the form N= No +K'(148)0 ) Here No is the number of residual counts or null-shift of the RLG, 8 represents a scale factor correction due to the gain ‘medium and K’ denotes that, in general, the scale factor is, rotation-dependent. It is important to note that itis not the non-zero values of Np and 5 but their fluctuations which are the sources of error and which degrade RLG performance. Each error source is now considered separately. (Null. shite drift [Null shifts are caused by any non-teciprocal frequency shifts of the counter-propagating waves for a stationary RLG (2= 0). The chief contribution to Mp arises from the Fresnel-Fizeau effect and the anomalous dispersion effect,” ‘and depends on the net flow velocity of the laser gas.along the optical path. The flow of the excited gain medium is mainly due to two mechanisms, thermal gradients along the ‘walls of the gain tube and d c excited discharge of the laser ‘gas, usually a HeNe mixture ‘Another source of null shift is non-zeciprocal cavity losses for the counter-propagating waves. The amount of null shift depends on the frequency of operation, which in tum depends on P. This provides one of the reasons for Pto be electronically controlled using a piezoelectric transducer. ‘The null-shift drift is caused by, among other things, random fluctuations in the discharge conditions and flow velocity and by variations in the beam path, The extent of these fluctuations from day to day sets a limit on the accuracy with which rotation rates were determined. At present levels, this drift ranges between I and 10°>° h-¥, depending on the size of the cavity, and is tolerable for most applications, For example, in the case of an aircraft navigation system its value is required to be about 10°?° hr*. Gain medium-dependent scale factor variations Presence of the gain medium inside the ring cavity causes ‘the ideal value of the scale factor K = 44/MP to deviate by a factor of (1 + 8). The small correction parameter 8 is calcu. lated using Lamb's laser theory for a ring laser and such an OPTICS AND LASER TECHNOLOGY . OCTOBER 1981 ‘ar egal repens lc 4 Fg, 8 The locking problem and solution for rg ow one nove ves te ftaon ate wit ouptog Stas countecpropagsting waves, tthe locking tes tow which Sf" ging t the chad anes bsnl {ithering ofthe ving lneeayonsope. Te cithering amplitude ‘ng> ty, Amok fate ne cornet ls ad tothe thr in er tolbwoid non tnaa rexpons ne etl ¢ = vege response Sine othe feos cur shown BY dad te, ‘Soa sone and arty oft span sich gocur nar gate of tear 10 Torey analysis has been caried out by Aronowitz? The calculation for 5 takes account of anomalous dispersion with inhomo- geneous broadening and homogeneous saturation of the gain ‘medium, In physical terms it arises from differential mode- palling and mode-pushing associated with a two-mode ring, laser. ‘As mentioned earlier, the RLG performance deteriorates if 8 varies during operation, Two factors may cause variation in 5: fluctuations in the gain medium parameters and variations in the eavity perimeter. The former requires stability of dis- charge and other operating conditions. The latter is absent, if the index of refraction varies linearly with the operating frequency. This is the case near the centre of the gain curve, anid have been exaggerated 21 ‘The uncertainty ag represents an ultimate limit to the per- formance ofa dithered RLG. This limit is acceptable for ‘most applications if the threshold locking rate 9, is low. enough, For instance, apis of the order of 10°? to 10° + for an integration time of one how. It can be seen from Fig. Se that the scale factor deviates from the constant value in the vicinity of the dither armpli- tude 2g. However, since this deviation is small (propor- tional to (2/4)? = 10) and & wvitational field yr in a dielectric medium. ‘Therefore, the isin some senie equivaleai toa dielectric medium. From these equations we can then use the standard fechniques to derive the wave equation The gravitational ficld, represented by the metric Spy =B is assumed to be of the form Barer hp 1 0 oy hea hos hy 0 0 0 = + ling 0 0 0 [> “18 lg 0 0 0 where tyy is the metric of special relativity and hy, is a small correction to it. In all that follows we only keep terms linear in. hy, Maxwell's equations (charge and current free) in Plebanski’s notation have the following form (Schicich and Scully, 1984) assuming the metric Eq. (1.16): Fey. Mod, Pi, Vol 57, No, Janay 1985 ) é The sing laser gyro ain te) together with the material equations D=E-c(BXb), a9 Bantex), (1.20) ‘where we used the notation hethyskonhon). vertu? Now we are able to derive a wave equation. The strategy is steaightforward and proceeds as follows. Taking as in ordinary electrodynamics Vx(V XE) and using the ma- terial equations (1.19) and (1.20) to eliminate the D and the H fields from Maxwell's equations (1.17) and (1.18) we arrive atthe following wave equation for the electric field E: Zin oF. aan eae For details of the derivation we refer the reader to the Appendix. In deriving Eq, (1.21) we have neglected all derivatives of h. /Le5 bea 2. Derivation of the frequency shift in terms of the metric In this section we are going to derive the Sagnac effect in a metric field g,y of the form of Eq, (1.16) for the use of an active and a passive device. To do this we try to solve Eq, (1.21) using the ansatz E=EgeS stocn['llntanes arate] usar ‘We assume a planar surface of the gyroscope but allow an arbitrary shape. ‘The path of the light may be defined by 1. For the sake of simplicity we assume the electric field Ep to be polarized perpendicular to the direction of the light path and to the area of the gyroscope. ‘This may be achieved by using Brewster windows. Then the electric field vector Ey is constant along the path of the light. ‘The wave veotor k we assume to be constant in its sbso- Tute value but changing its direction due to the shape of the interferometer, therefore kir)= Zale) , (1.22) where e(r) denotes a unit vector in the direction of propa- gation at point r, The effect of the gravitational field bis fed in by the frequency shift Ac and the phase shift g(r) Both corrections contain the gravitational field fh at least linearly. To get the passive resonator case results we have to set Aw=0, because the frequencies of the two counter- propagating waves are equal and fixed to be that of the Chow et al: The ‘extemal light source. To describe the active case we have to fulfil periodic boundary conditions for the phase. Substituting the ansatz into Eq, (1.21), noting that Ep is constant we find by standard vector algebra Pa evens Pe 2k abe (1.23) ear Flos dor —tk+ V9 Note that in deriving the rightchand side we already neglected terms O(h). We ean simplify this by noting ef le| KP 2k-Vp Ao *(Ao—ce-Vep) , e where we used Aw~O(h) and Vp~O(h). (1.23) reduces then to ‘Equation Ao~ceVi thre} qlee, where we again made use of Eq. (1.22) and defined the re- duced wavelength R=2/2n=c/. A solution to the above equation is oom A® farce et fiae-nte, where r denotes a point on the path of the light. The phase shift after one round trip is then simply So 1 APG drete+ + G de-hie) o Padres 5 Sdehie Ser de spor ohn, where PW the length of the interferometer neglecting ‘gravitational effects. We first want to consider a passive device with a light source outside of the cavity. In this case the frequencies ‘of the two counterpropagating waves are fixed to be equal, to the external frequency wy, This means Ao=0. The Sagnac phase shift between the two waves is then simply De=ZSarhi=z f faawxn, where we have used Stoke's theorem in the last step. The factor of 2 arises from the fact that we consider two counterpropagating waves. Now we turn to-an active cavity, which means the light source is inside the cavity. In such a case the boundary condition is such that the wave after one round trip must interfere with itself in a constructive way, which means eP € i) (124) 2an = From Eq, (1.22) we immediately find eget th Faennal(Garkie @ de ge viet tng laser gyro 6s and therefore: ‘ dom = Garnier. 25 his is the frequency shift for an electromagnetic wave in an active interferometer in a gravitational potential bh. Because there are two counterpropagating waves in a ring laser gyroscope we get for the frequency shift between the ‘two waves twice the result of Eq. (1.25), namely dom — ZF dehind. (126) Stoke's theorem can be applied to obtain Aw in a different form 20 ao=—Fe J S,aacvxny 2Ae Se lyxhhe, (aan ‘This “generalized” Sagnac effect is the main result of this section. In Eq. (1.27) A is the area of the planar surface bounded by the ray path of the interferometer and ¢, is a Unit vector normal to the plane of the device. The surface 4 is bounded by the ray path and the curl is evaluated at, the center of the interferometer. In deriving Eq. (1.27) we have retained only the terms linear in h and neglected derivatives of h. 3. Classical Sagnac effect In this section we want to make the connection between the classical Sagnac effect discussed in See. ILA and the results derived in the previous sections. To do this we need the metric vector h for a rotating interferometer. ‘We may read this from the line element ds goal dx + 2gydlx dx! + gydx tds , where we sum over double indices. In the present problem gq=fqq.. The simplest example of a metric with off-diagonal elements between space and time is the metric in a rotating frame. This result written in Cartesian coordinates is as follows. In order to transform to a rotating frame the line element as*=c%de®— (dx? +dy? +de*) is transformed (for rotation about the z axis) according to where we denote the coordinates in the rotating frame by 5F(et',x',y'2"). This yields Ea [:- SS Joan tae sart nae 9 santicatin 20% cary Chow et al: The ring laser gyro 8 where P, is the power output of the laser, L is the length Of the fiber, ois an attenuation coefficient characteristic Of the fiber, and Py is the power coupled out of the end of the fiber, Typical values of a for existing fibers are a few dB/km. ‘The optimum fiber length for minimizing the detectable rotation rate is determined by balancing the ef- fect that increasing 1. has on the magnitude of the fringe shift, with the reduced sensitivity ‘of the detector which eeults from a decreased power out of the fiber. Several analyses (Vali and Shorthill, 1976; Lin and Giallorenzi, 1979) have estimated the optimum fiber length, for exist- ing fibers, to be several kilometers, for which a rotation rate of 107? deg/h or less covld, in theory, be detected. ‘This minimum sensitivity is limited only by the quantum noise of the detector and the attenuation properties of ex- isting fibers. In practice it is very ifficult to approach this limit, The variance in the theoretical and experimen- tal sensitivities is due to a number of factors whose nature and experimental resolution will now be discussed. 4. Noise sources in the fier ring gyro The noise sources to be discussed in this section are those associated with thermal effects, the need to main- tain a single mn state in the fiber, beam to fiber coupiing, back-scattering, and the optical Kerr effect. In fsddition there are other noise sources associated with the detection of the phase difference such as 1/f noise, dark carrent noise, amplifier noise, the effect of magnetic fields, and variation of the index of refraction of the fiber, which will not be treated here, ‘These last sources are treated in some detail by Lin and Giallorenzi (1979), Schiffner (1980), and Lecb et al. (1979) a. Thermal noise ‘The problem of thermally induced nonceciprocities in the round-trip path lengths of the CW and CCW propa- | ‘gating beams is discussed in an article by Shupe (1980) The following discussion is based largely on his paper. ‘The condition which causes thermally induced non- reciprocities is the existence of a time-dependent tempera~ ture gradient along the length of the fiber. Now, in the fiber ring interferometer, corresponding wave fronts of the two counter-rotating beams encounter the same region of the fiber at different times and the propagation con- stant of the fiber, B (which is related to the velocity, v, of light through the fiber by the expression B=a/v, where @ is the frequency of the laser light) is temperature depen dent. In this way the CW and CCW propagating beams traverse slightly different effective path lengths and so a spurious phase shift is produced. ‘The magnitude of this thermally induced nonreciprocal phase delay can be obtained in the following way. Con- Sider the incremental phase delay, dp, to both counter- propagating beams produced by cach element di of the | fiber’s length. The temperature, T, is taken to vary both | with time and the position along the fiber, Under these ‘conditions Shupe points out that “The variation of thei feremental phase over a period d at any point alongthe fiber can be approximated by” de: a3) 4B gal BT, “8 +60} a where ¢ is the time, and a is the coefficient of linear ex pansion of the fiber. This equation is valid over time ‘eriods on the order of the time it takes light to make one {rip around the fiber coil. Note that the first term in Eq. (0.5) accounts for the variation of the index of refraction with temperature and the second indicates that the scale factor (Le, length) changes with changing T. “The total thermally induced phase shift induced in a time Br can be calculated by taking the time 7 in Eq, (2.3) to be the difference in the time it takes for two wave fronts which enter opposite ends of the fiber at the same time to reach a given point in the fiber which is located at a distance | from one end of the fiber, and then integrat- ing Eq, (2.3) over the length of the fiber, Sat—ny on and performing the integrations gives, 4B op. S |¢ vam 2 Jf al -LiT DTD Id 8, re) where we have assumed that 6 and d8/aT are time i dependent and the order of integration over and # can be interchanged. These are first-order approximations. Furthermore, in order to get a numerical estimate of the apparent rotation due to the thermally induced phase shift, Shupe makes the following assumptions: Backne 5 (2.62) dp _ kane at aT’ 2.80) T(qD—T(ON=1AT/L (2.60) where k is the free-space wave number of the laser light, nn is the refractive index of the fiber core (the approxima tion being that rem, where 1 is the refractive index of the fiber cladding), and AT is the temperature change across the coil in a time ¢, Substituting Eqs. (2.6) into (2.5) and equating the resulting phase shift to the right- hand side of Eq, (2.1) in order to get an expression for the thermally induced apparent rotation rate yields pn ebAT | dee s eeai2anTaGl | Tehama SShupe calculates the temperature change AT necessary t0 produce a shot-noise limited rotation rate in an integra- tion time of 1h (ie, 51=1 h). He uses the shot-noise limited rotation rate calculated by Lin and Giallorenzi (1979) of 0.0078 dez/' for a fiber ring gyro having a fiber coil of radius 10 cm and length 1.56 km, and takes an Fev. Mo hy Vo. 7, No.1, Jarry 1998 6 Chow et al: The ting laser gyro ar 10-3 225 x10-7 GPuOLe, a=Sx1-"7C, 0, With these values, Eq. (2.7) yields the result that AT’ need only be 6.7X10-°/C before thermally induced non- reciprocities become the limiting factor in the sensitivity of such a fiber ring gyro. In common navigational apy cations such temperature invariance would be impractical to maintain. Shupe offers two remedies to this problem. The first is to produce fibers with smaller indices of re- fraction (and smaller values of di. /dT). The second sug- gestion is to wind the fiber coil in such a way that por- tions of the fiber that are at equal distances from the center of the fiber are beside each other so that they un- dergo the same temperature fluctuations and the non- reciprocity is eliminated. 145 '. Polarization and birefringence All passive, fibec ring gyros make use of so-called single-mode fibers. In practice all real “single-mode” fibers permit the transmission of modes of two orthogo- nal polarizations through the fiber (in cach direction) Disturbances, such as temperature fluctuations and mechanical stresses, cause power to be transferred from one polarization mode to the other. (Normally one of the two modes cacries almost all of the power.) Light in one polarization mode has a velocity different from the light ‘which is being propagated in the other polarization mode so that if light from both mode channels” exists in the output, the interference pattern will consist of two super- posed interference patterns with the resulting pattern hav- ing less contrast and being shifted with respect to the pat- tem which would be produced if only the dominant mode were present in the output. Ulrich and Johnson (1979) re- port just such a blurred and slowly moving fringe pattern which they correlate to the effect described above. They report that a scheme utilizing polarizers and analyzers to suppress the weak polarization mode resulted in a fringe pattern in which the positions of the fringes were perfect- ly" stable, regardless of temperature fluctuations and ‘mechanical disturbances in the fiber which tend to transfer energy from one polarization mode channel to the other. However, as one would expect, the intensity of the fringes varied strongly during these disturbances. For this reason they suggest that detection schemes which respond to the position of the fringes only should be con- sidered. ‘The noise produced by the transfer of energy between the two modes makes the need for fibers which inhibit this energy transfer clear. One method devised to make single polarization holding fibers is the introduction of hhigh birefringence into the fiber coil (far exceeding the birefringence induced by small temperature fluctuations and mechanical disturbances which are responsible for the undesirable energy transfer). To understand why this high birefringence inhibits the energy transfer consider the birefringence length L (Ramaswary et al, 1978) with Fv. Mod Phys, Vol. 57, Mo 1, January 1805, 32 28) where AB is the difference between the propagation con- stants of the two modes with orthogonal polarizations which the fiber will transmit. The birefringence length is the beat length in which energy is transferred from one mode to the other and then back again. If the manufac- tured beat length is made smaller than the beat length of ‘any mechanical disturbance which the fiber might under- go, then no energy can be transferred from one polariza- tion mode to the other. The beat lengths of mechanical disturbances are rarely smaller than 10 em and so coils with inherent beat lengths of 5 cm or less (Rashleigh and Ulrich, 1980) are desirable and obtainable. (Note that for fa beat length of 5 cm, A@ must be approximately 1.26/em,} Fibers with a high birefringence can be pro- duced by drawing the fibers so that they have an elliptical core or by introducing a highly anisotropic internal stress. In addition: winding a typical single-mode fiber «under pressure can also produce the necessary high birefringence (Rashleigh and Ulrich, 1980) ©. Beam-to-fiber coupling noise ‘Another noise source in fiber ring gyros which can be a larger source of error than shot noise results from light which is backscattered when the laser beam is coupled {nto and out of the fiber. The reflection coefficient at the end face can be approximated by the expression (Ulrich and Rashileigh, 1980) (29) +1 where 1 is the index of refraction on the axis of the fiber. ‘The reflected light can modify the output from the fiber if it interferes with the primary beam. The treatment of the beam-to-fiber coupling noise given here is essentially the same as that of Ulrich and Rashleigh (1980). In a Michelson-type interferometer the reflection-induced phase error can be as large as |r| radians and, for a Mach-Zehnder-type interferometer in which the interfer- ence occurs after m coupling reflections as large as |r |". Ulrich and Rasbleigh state that a reasonable condition for beam-to-fiber coupling to be considered efficient, is that the reflected power which interferes with the primary eam be no larger than the power backscattered by the fiber itself through Rayleigh scattering. For a I-m-long single-mode fiber an approximate value for the backscat- tered power is —60 dB so that the power reflected at the input or output beam/fiber interface (||? r9|%, respectively) should be less than 10° times the beam power. Using the conditions stated earlier this would re- sult in phase shift error of 10? rad or les. Ulrich and Rashleigh (1980) propose three viable solu- tions to the problem of beam-to-fiber coupling noise, These are the use of antireflective coatings on the fiber ‘end faces, the use of an immersion cell to reduce the index of refraction step at the beam/fiber interface, and the pro- Chow et al: The ring laser gyro 60 uetion of fibers with tilted end faces so that little of the reflected light interferes with the primary beam, ‘The use of antireflective coatings alone does not seem sufficient as these reduce |r|? and | r9 |? to only about 10~. However, in conjunction with other remedies, an- tireflective coatings may reduce the lower limit of beam- to-fiber coupling noise. ‘The effectiveness of immersion cells is limited by the fact that the indices of refraction vary with temperature, A liquid whose index of refraction, nj, matches that of the fiber at a given temperature so that nom em 2.10) is negligible will not provide index matching when the temperature is varied. For a temperature variation of 10°C, m—n can be as large as 10"? leading to a power reflection coefficient of as much as 10-5, Careful choice of the immersion liquid and rigid, temperature control would of course reduce this coefficient. However, the im- mersion cell remedy to ‘beam-to-fiber coupling ‘noise is somewhat clumsy in a practical laser gyro and in addition the windows of the immersion cell itself introduce addi- tional reflections. Currently the favored solution is the use of tilted end faces. In this way, most of the reflected light does not terfere with the primary beam. Ideally one would like to ‘make the angular separation between the geometrical divection of the reflected light and the direction of the primary beam as large as possible. However, one must ‘compromise since as the normal to the end face is made to be at a larger and larger angle to the beam direction, the coupling efficiency is reduced due to the introduction of astigmatic aberrations (which may also lead to non- reciprocal effects), Ulrich and Rashleigh caleulate that ‘an angle of 10° between the normal to the end face and the primary beam input direction is necessary to reduce [ro |? and |r|? to below 10-6. They cantion against us- ing angles much larger than this for the reasons given above. (However the optimum tilt angle, of course, de- pends largely on the specific experimental setup.) . Backscattering A. major source of error to be discussed in this section results from backscattering duc to splices in the fiber and Rayleigh backscattering from the fiber itself. In this sec- tion we discuss the way in which backscattering con- tributes to a nonreciprocal phase shift (forward scattering is also thought to contribute but will not be discussed hhere) in passive devices. Following Cutler et al. (1980) one can make the fol lowing estimate of the magnitude of the noise induced by backscattering (Bohm et ai., 1981). For simplicity, con- sider only Rayleigh backscattering. Let a, be the Ray- leigh scattering attenuation coefficient of the fiber 30 that, taking Rayleigh scattering to be the only loss factor, the ower of the primary beam when it exits the fiber after cone complete circulation, Po, is given by Po=re, au where P; is the beam power coupled into the fiber and is the length of the fiber. In addition, some of the back. scattered energy also exits the fiber and mixes with the primary beam. Let Gz?/4 (Bohm et al., 1981) be the fraction of the total scattered power that is transmitted by the fiber core and 50 mixes with the primary beam in the output. Here G is the scattering directivity along the fiber (1> the phase difference ~ sgrows essentially as a linear function of time, as it would, do in the absence of backscattering But if SQ

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