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

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 /spl mu/m. Experimental calibrations of the samples agreed well with theoretical results. We made liquid crystal clad fiber polarizers by using these side-polished 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.