Holey fibers with random cladding distributions

We provide what is to our knowledge the first direct confirmation that light can be guided in a holey fiber with randomly distributed air holes in the cladding. We also show that many of the features previously attributed to periodic holey fibers, in particular, single-mode guidance at all wavelengths, can also be obtained with random holey fibers. We provide insight into exactly how sensitive a holey fiber's optical properties are to the details of the cladding profile.