title: Improved design of polarization-maintaining photonic crystal fibers.
abstract: We propose the realization of single-polarization operation in highly birefringent photonic crystal fibers. The suppression of one of the polarization states is realized by introducing index-matched cladding defect waveguides. The leakage loss of the index-matched polarization state can be enhanced by nearly 4 orders of magnitude. In particular, polarization-dependent loss larger than 2.97 dB/m with transmission loss lower than 0.03 dB/m in a wavelength region ranging from 1.54 to 1.566 microm can be realized in one such fiber.
authors.affiliation: Department of Optical Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province, China. miniyoung@163.com
authors.forename: Ming-Yang
authors.initials: MY
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Yong-Kang
authors.initials: YK
authors.lastname: Zhang