Highly birefringent silica microfiber.
A highly birefringent silica microfiber was successfully developed by adiabatically tapering a low-birefringence flat fiber at a low temperature. Owing to the high fiber cross-sectional ellipticity and the large refractive index contrast between silica and the surrounding air (deltan=0.45) the flat microfiber provides an extremely high group birefringence (B=5.3x10(-3) at 1550 nm). The ability to obtain high birefringence in optical microfibers offers new possibilities for polarization discrimination and control within microfiber devices, such as high-resolution optical sensors, resonators, and fiber lasers.
Jung
Yongmin
Y
Optoelectronics Research Centre, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK. mj@orc.soton.ac.uk
Brambilla
Gilberto
G
Oh
Kyunghwan
K
Richardson
David J
DJ