Integrated polarizers based on tapered highly birefringent photonic crystal fibers

This paper proposes and demonstrates the creation of sections with a high polarization dependent loss (PDL) in a commercial highly birefringent (polarization maintaining) photonic crystal fiber (PCF), via tapering with pressure applied to the holes. The tapers had a 1-cm-long uniform section with a 66% scale reduction, in which the original microstructure aspect ratio was kept by the pressure application. The resulting waveguides show polarizing action across the entire tested wavelength range, 1510-1600 nm, with a peak PDL of 35.3 dB/cm (c.f. ~1 dB/cm for a typical commercial polarizing fiber). The resulting structure, as well as its production, is extremely simple, and enable a small section with a high PDL to be obtained in a polarization maintaining PCF, meaning that the polarization axes in the polarizing and polarization maintaining sections are automatically aligned.