Group Birefringence Measurement in Photonic Liquid Crystal Fibers by Use of Narrowband Light Sources

Abstract

In the paper we present the results of investigating the effective group birefringence of photonic crystal fiber, partially infiltrated with 6CHBT liquid crystal mixture, which is a chemical abbreviation for 4-(trans-4-n-hexylcyclohexyl)isothiocyanatobenzene. We also introduce a novel method of group birefringence measurement based on phenomenon of depolarization of partially coherent light in birefringent media. We use Mueller–Stokes matrix formalism extended by additional depolarization matrix, which gives us possibility to calculate degree of polarization fluctuations of the light propagating in the liquid-crystal infiltrated microstructured optical fibres. We conducted the research for green and red semiconductor laser diodes. The results may contribute in construction of tunable photonic liquid crystal fibers depolarizer. Additionally, we have controlled birefringence of the photonic liquid crystal fibers by external electric field. These research may lead to designing a new type of fiber optic depolarizer based on photonic liquid crystal fibers.