A proposal of a novel polarizer based on a partial liquid-filled hollow-core photonic bandgap fiber

A novel polarizer is designed by liquid filling in partial air-holes of a hollow-core photonic bandgap fiber (PBGF) forming an asymmetric waveguide structure, which leads to the vertical polarization light leaking out while the horizontal polarization light remaining to propagate along the fiber with a relatively low loss. Applied with a full-vector finite-element (FEM) method, a series of polarizer structures with different water-filled regions has been simulated for a better performance on the polarization extinction ratio and the insertion loss. Through optimization, the proposed PBGF polarizer has a high polarization extinction ratio of more than 32 dB in the operation wavelength range from 1530 nm to 1600 nm. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.