High birefringence fibre Bragg gratings written in tapered photonic crystal fibre with femtosecond IR radiation

High birefringence Bragg gratings were written with ultrafast 800 nm radiation in non-birefringent pure silica core photonic crystal fibres (PCF) that were tapered with an oxy-hydrogen flame. The grating spectra indicate that a birefringence above 10−3 was created in the tapered PCF.