title: Polarization-maintaining property of tapered polarization-maintaining fibers.
abstract: Distributed group birefringence of tapered polarization-maintaining fibers (PMFs) is measured by employing a high-resolution optical frequency-domain reflectometry system. Autocorrelation data processing reveals distributed mode coupling between the fast and slow modes and higher-order modes excited by the tapering process along the taper region. The polarization-maintaining property of a tapered PMF is examined by distributed group birefringence along the tapered PMF with a spatial resolution of ~1.25 cm and a polarization-extinction ratio at the fiber taper output over the wavelength range of 1510-1570 nm. With a waist diameter of 80 μm, the polarization state of the launched light is maintained and the birefringence of the tapered PMF is slightly reduced from 3.28×10(-4) to 2.89×10(-4) at the taper waist. For both the waist diameters of 60 and 40 μm, mode coupling is observed in the form of significantly decreased birefringence by a factor of ~10 at the taper waists.
authors.affiliation: Fiber Optics Group, Department of Physics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. wxzsky@gmail.com
authors.forename: Xiaozhen
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Graeme
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Niedermayer
authors.forename: Ganbin
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Baishi
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Xiaoyi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Bao