Technique for the reduction of fading in interferometers

This patent application discloses a passive device for reducing polarization fading in interferometers without significantly degrading the signal-to-noise ratio. In one embodiment, light form an interferometer output is passed through a lens to a polarization mask. The polarization mask comprises at least three independent polarizers which pass independent states of polarizers. Each independently polarized signal is detected, demodulated and passed to a means for signal extraction.