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Updated: Jun 5, 2026

Transmission of Multiple Signals through an Optical Fiber Using Wavefront Shaping
Published on: March 20, 2017
Pure chiral optical fibres
L Poladian1, M Straton, A Docherty
1Institute of Photonics and Optical Science (IPOS), School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Sydney, NSW, Australia. leon.poladian@sydney.edu.au
Abstract:
We investigate the properties of optical fibres made from chiral materials, in which a contrast in optical activity forms the waveguide, rather than a contrast in the refractive index; we refer to such structures as pure chiral fibres. We present a mathematical formulation for solving the modes of circularly symmetric examples of such fibres and examine the guidance and polarisation properties of pure chiral step-index, Bragg and photonic crystal fibre designs. Their behaviour is shown to differ for left- and right-hand circular polarisation, allowing circular polarisations to be isolated and/or guided by different mechanisms, as well as differing from equivalent non-chiral fibres. The strength of optical activity required in each case is quantified.
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