In this paper

for space application of the interference fiber optic gyroscope(IFOG)

radiation effect on polarization-maintaining fibers irradiated by 60Co γ-rays to different total doses at different dose rates is studied

and a mathematic relationship between the radiation-induced performance loss of the polarization-maintaining fiber and the dose rate is established.The losses were 1.0

0.55 and 5.8 dB for total doses of 63

32 and 326 Gy at dose rates of 0.01

0.02 and 0.0835 Gy/s

respectively.These show that the performance loss of the polarization-maintaining fibers increases with the dose rate and the total dose.The theoretical analysis

which well interprets the experimental data

provides references to ground tests of the radiation effect on polarization-maintaining fibers for space applications.