Reproducible fabrication method for polarization preserving single-mode fiber couplers

The adaptation of the biconically-tapered-fused (BTF) fiber coupler fabrication approach to polarization preserving fiber couplers is reported. Two practical methods for identifying and aligning the birefringent axes of the fibers forming the coupler are described. The fabrication approaches are highly reproducible and the 3-dB couplers fabricated exhibit less than 1.0-dB insertion loss, controllable splitting ratio, and an average polarization extinction ratio of 15 to 20 dB.>