Design of bent photonic crystal fiber supporting a single polarization

Abstract

In this work, it is shown that the differential loss between the TE- and TM-polarized fundamental modes in a highly birefringent photonic crystal fiber (PCF) can be enhanced by bending the fiber. As a result, a design approach for single-mode single-polarization operation has been developed and is discussed. A rigorous full-vectorial H-field-based finite element approach, which includes the conformal transformation and the perfectly matched layer, is used to determine the single-polarization properties of such a highly birefringent PCF by exploiting its differential bending losses.