title: Polymer optical microstructured fiber with birefringence induced by stress-applying elements.
abstract: We report on the fabrication of a birefringent microstructured PMMA fiber with polystyrene stress-applying elements located in the solid part of the cladding. A microstructured part of the cladding composed of three rings of holes was made of a technical-grade PMMA by a drilling method. The fiber shows a relatively high birefringence of the order of 4×10(-5), which weakly depends upon wavelength in the investigated spectral range from 0.6 to 1 μm. The cross talk between polarization modes is lower than -20  dB for a 1 m long fiber, while the fiber loss is about 8  dB/m at 0.83 μm. We also studied the fiber response to temperature in the range from 20°C to 60°C. The temperature induced birefringence change is negative and shows a significant hysteresis in the first cycle, which gradually disappears in successive cycles.
authors: Pawel
authors: P
authors: Mergo
authors: Tadeusz
authors: T
authors: Martynkien
authors: Waclaw
authors: W
authors: Urbanczyk