Polarization mode dispersion reduction in spun large mode area silica holey fibres

We report the fabrication of the first spun holey optical fibre. Our experiments show that the complex air/glass transverse structure can be retained when the preform is spun during the fibre drawing process. Measurements of differential group delay (DGD) confirm that significant reductions in polarization mode dispersion (PMD) can be readily achieved using this approach.