Radius of uncladded optical fiber from back-scattered radiation pattern*

The back-scattered pattern produced by a plane-polarized beam incident normally on a large uncladded optical fiber can be used to determine the refractive index and the radius of the fiber. The geometric-optics method is used to analyze the pattern. A new procedure to find the radius of the fiber is proposed. The procedure can make use of nearly the whole of the back-scattered pattern, without need to measure exactly the positions of all of the individual fringes. Special attention is given to the limits of accuracy.