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Guidelines for the design of a circular-polarisation-maintaining single-mode fibre cable are given. The use of circular polarisation allows use of low birefringence fibres and there is no need for orienting the fibres at splices. Quarter-wave plates at input and output of the fibres achieve the desired linear-circular polarisation conversion, and vice versa.
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Jeunhomme et al. (1980) studied this question.
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