High-performance side-polished fibers and applications as liquid crystal clad fiber polarizers

Abstract

A plurality of single-mode fibers glued in the curved, V-shaped grooves of a silicon wafer were polished. Using a homemade polisher, we successfully gained access to fiber cores. The insertion losses of the polished samples were negligibly small even for fibers with a curvature radius of 250 cm long and a proximity to the core smaller than 0.1 μm. Experimental calibrations of the samples agreed well with theoretical results. We made liquid crystal clad fiber polarizers by using these sidepolished fibers and successfully showed the extinction ratios of the polarizers in good agreement with their liquid-drop results. The extinction ratios of our polarizers were predicated higher than 60 dB. Details of measuring system and processing were considered.