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Bending Properties of Hole-assisted

Single Polarization Fibers
Xin Chen, Ming-Jun Li, Joohyun Koh, Anthony Artuso, and Daniel A. Nolan
Science and Technology Division, Corning Incorporated, SP-AR-01-2, Corning, NY 14831
Tel: 607-974-8691, E-mail: chenx2@corning.com

Abstract: We study effects of bending on single polarization fiber performance. Good qualitative
agreement between numerical and experimental results is found, which helps to understand fiber
deployment conditions and facilitate new design.
OCIS codes: (060.2270) Fiber characterization; (060.2420) Fibers, polarization-maintaining

Recently there has been an increasing interest in using single-polarization fibers in applications such as fiber lasers,
fiber-optic gyroscopes, and fiber sensors to deal with unwanted and detrimental polarization effects. Different
approaches in achieving single polarization operation in optical fibers have been explored [1-4]. Although a solid
type single polarization fiber was previously studied [1], more recent studies focused on single polarization fiber
with air holes either in hole-assisted fibers or microstructured fibers [2-6].
In the past few years, we have proposed, implemented and commercialized a hole-assisted single polarization
fiber [5-6]. In studying this new type of fiber, we have identified several novel properties that require special
attention in order to use the fiber properly. Unlike conventional polarization maintaining fibers, the hole-assisted
single polarization fibers have a cutoff wavelength for each of the two fundamental polarization modes, which
results in significantly different behaviors. For example, the fiber cutoff wavelength drifts with the fiber length.
Other factors such as the temperature and the bending could also have some effects on the performance of the single
polarization fiber. Of particular interest to this paper is the bending property of the hole-assisted single polarization
fibers. Understanding these effects could be critical for both the fiber developers and the end users since the fiber
property could alter from the measured conditions to the deployed conditions. These effects can potentially
complicate the efforts in some applications. However, when properly used, some of the deployment effects can be
beneficial for additional flexibility in certain applications [7].
There has been a long history of studying the bending properties of optical fibers [8], mostly transmission
fibers. These studies focused on understanding how bending affects the loss of the simple step index optical fiber in
the macrobending regime as it is a critical factor for optical communications. Very recently the study has been
extended to photonic crystal fibers to understand the coupling effect between fundamental and cladding modes on
bending loss [9] and to design holey fiber with low bending losses [10]. To our knowledge, to date no literature has
addressed the problem of how bending affects fibers with fundamental mode cutoff, in particular single polarization
fibers. In this paper, we conduct both a theoretical and experimental study on bending effects on single polarization
fibers to gain systematic understanding of this problem. We first describe a numerical modeling based on a finite
element method. We then present experimental results with comparison to numerical results.
For the numerical modeling, we adopt a finite element method for fully vectorial Maxwell equation for the two
dimensional fibers structure similar to that used in a previous paper [11]. Since the finite element method can only
address the problem with finite domain, we add a perfectly matched layer (PML) outside the fiber cladding similar
to that in [10,11] to emulate the effect of infinite domain, which allows us to calculate the loss associated with each
eigen-mode of the fiber The cross section view of the domain in our modeling is shown in Figure 1. In the analysis
of bending effects, the curved fiber is replaced by a straight one with an equivalent refractive index distribution,
x (1)
n eq ( x , y ) = n ( x , y ) exp( )
R
where R is the bending radius. In Eq.(1) we assume the fiber is always bent along the x-direction. In order to study
the effect of bending on different fiber orientation, we rotate the fiber counter-clockwise by certain degrees, for
example, 45 degrees or 90 degrees while keeping the bending direction fixed. The PML is an artificially added
anisotropic absorbing layer, whose refractive index is complex. In Refs.[10, 11], the PML is a rectangular layer
surrounding the fiber. In order to better study the bending effect with different fiber orientations, we introduce the
cylindrical PML as described in [12]. In our modeling, we have chosen the thickness of the PML so that the
imaginary part of the effective index becomes stable. The loss of the fiber can be calculated from the imaginary part
of the propagation constant β so that bending loss is,
20 (2)
αB = Im(β )
ln(10)

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With the modeling tool fully established, we start to study the loss of the fiber as a function of wavelength.
First, we take a look at the result of a straight fiber, which is shown in Fig. 2. In the modeling, we have chosen a set
of fiber parameters so that they have the single polarization operation window centered on 1550 nm. Note that the
single polarization operation window is the wavelength range between the cutoff wavelengths of the two
fundamental polarization modes. When the fundamental mode cutoff is reached, the loss increases sharply. The
curves are very similar to the transmission spectrum measured in [5] taking into account that higher loss means less
transmission. In order for the results in Fig. 2 to be more comparable to transmission spectrum in Ref. [5], we have
flipped the order of the vertical axis. The single polarization window is around 80 nm wide while an actual fiber
implemented according to the design has a bandwidth of 55-60nm.
Sheet: Untitled1
0
10

Loss (dB/m)
20
30
40
50 Cutoff 1 Cutoff 2
60
1500 1520 1540 1560 1580 1600 1620
Wavelength (nm)
Figure 1. Cross section view of the fiber with PML. Figure 2. Loss as a function of wavelength for two
fundamental polarization modes.

In the next step, we study the effect of bending on the cutoffs for the fiber as shown in Fig. 1 by bending it with
5 cm, 10 cm, and 20 cm diameters. The results are shown in Fig. 3 for each polarization mode. It is clear that
bending has complex effects to the loss curve. The transition to the cutoff is not necessarily smooth and sharp. In
some cases, the curve appears to be slightly bumpy. However, in general, with tighter bending, the overall single
polarization operating windows shifts toward a lower wavelength. At the tighter bending, the transition to cutoff is
less steep, which effectively reduces the single polarization extinction ratio, defined as the power ratio in dB
between two polarization modes, for some part of the single polarization operation window. In addition, the loss
curves for polarization mode 1 monotonically shift toward lower value while for the other polarization mode the
order can be flipped as we decrease the bending diameter.
Sheet: Untitled2 Sheet: Untitled8
0 0
Polarization Mode 1 Polarization Mode 1
10 10
20 20
30 30
Loss (dB/m)
Loss (dB/m)

40 40
50 50
Sheet:1500
Untitled3 1550 Sheet: Untitled4
01400 1450 1600 01460 1480 1500 1520 1540 1560 1580
10 5cm Column1 10 Column1
20 10cm 20 0 Degree
30 20cm 30 45 Degree
40 Polarization Mode 2 40 Polarization Mode 2 90 Degree
50 50
1400 1450 1500 1550 1600 1460 1480 1500 1520 1540 1560 1580
Wavelength (nm) Wavelength (nm)
Figure 3. Loss as a function of wavelength for both polarization Figure 4. Loss as a function of wavelength for both polarization
modes at several different bending diameters with 0 degree modes at several orientation angles of 0, 45 and 90 degree. Bending
rotation. diameter is fixed at 20 cm.

Since the fiber cross section is asymmetric, one may wonder if the cutoff behavior varies with the fiber
orientation. Using the layout in Figure 1 as a reference to have 0 degree rotation, we subsequently rotate the fiber by
45 and 90 degrees and obtain the loss as a function of wavelength. The results are shown in Figure 4 for a bending
diameter of 20 cm. It can be found that fiber orientation relative to the bending direction can have significant effects
on the fiber cutoff behavior. When the fiber bending direction is aligned with the direction of the two air holes (0
degree curve), the bending has less effect on the cutoff because the fiber has better bending resistance due to the
higher glass-air index contrast than the other orientations. We also observe that the response to the bending is
different for the two polarization modes. For the first polarization mode, the cutoff shifts towards shorter wavelength
monotonically as the fiber rotation angle increases. But for the second polarization mode, the effect of bending on
the 45 degree and 90 degree rotation is not significantly different as the loss curves almost overlap.

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We also conducted experimental study to see how the bending affects the cutoff behavior for the single
polarization fiber. We first tested a fiber with the single polarization window around 1060 nm. We measured the
fiber under the straight condition and then bent it at three bending diameters of 5 cm, 10 cm and 20 cm. We repeated
the measurement several times. It is found that the transmission curve that indicates the fiber cutoff behavior vary
each time in the experiment sometimes with the ‘bumpy’ structure. This is understandable that the fiber orientation
may vary each time we redeploy the fiber. However, within each experiment, with careful handling, it is reasonable
to believe that the fiber orientations among several bending diameters remain approximately the same. In Figure 5,
we show the result of one of such experiment. We also tested a fiber with the single polarization window around
1550 nm under the conditions of no bend, and with bend diameters of 10 and 20 cm. The results are plotted in
Figure 6. It can be found that the overall effects of the bending are to shift the cutoff curve toward lower
wavelengths. In addition, we observe that with tighter bending, the spectrum in the cutoff transition regime is less
steep. Both of the observations have been in good agreement with the numerical modeling results described above in
Figure 3. The poor repeatability especially in tight bending regime is also consistent with the numerical modeling
results as the bending effect depends on the fiber orientation relative to the fiber bending direction.
Fig5a.PDW Fig6a.PDW
0 0
) olumn2

Polarization Mode 1 Polarization Mode 1

20cm
5 5cm 5 20cm No Bend

10 10cm No Bend 10
Loss (dBC

15

Loss (dB)
15 10cm
20 20 Fig6b.PDW
1000 1020 Fig5b.PDW
1040 1060 1080 1100
0 No Bend 01450 1500 1550 1600
No Bend
5 Column1 5 Column1 20cm
20cm
10 10
5cm 10cm 10cm
15 Polarization Mode 2 15 Polarization Mode 2
20 20
1000 1020 1040 1060 1080 1100 1450 1500 1550 1600
Wavelength (nm) Wavelength (nm)
Figure 5. Measured fundamental mode cutoff wavelength shifts at Figure 6. Measured fundamental mode cutoff wavelength shifts at
different bending diameters for 1060 nm single polarization fiber different bending diameters for 1550 nm single polarization fiber

In summary, we have conducted both numerical modeling and experimental measurements on the bending
property of hole-assisted single polarization fibers. We have adopted a finite element method in conjunction with the
use a cylindrical PML layer technique to study the effect of bending on the cutoff behavior of single polarization
fibers. We uncovered several aspects of the bending effects such as the bending diameter and bending orientation to
the fiber cutoff behavior. We have found good qualitative agreement between the numerical modeling and the
experimental measurements. It is expected that the modeling technique, which is used for the first time on single
polarization fibers, can also be applicable to wider range of fibers such as photonic crystal fibers. The understanding
of the bending behavior can also provide intriguing opportunities. Recently, the bending of single polarization fiber
has enabled a wavelength tunable stretched-pulse ring laser [7].
References:
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Photonics Technol. Lett. 16, 182 (2004)
3. J. R. Folkenberg, M. D. Nielsen, and C. Jakobsen, “Broadband single-polarization photonic crystal fiber”, Optics Lett. 30, (2005)
4. T. Schreiber, O. Schmidt, F. Roser, J. Röthhardt, J. Limpert, “High power operation of a low-nonlinearity single polarization photonic
crystal fiber”, Photonics West 2006, WA3.
5. D. A. Nolan, G. E. Berkey, M.-J. Li, X. Chen, W. A. Wood, and L. A. Zenteno, “Single-polarization fiber with a high extinction ratio”,
Optics Lett. 29, 1855 (2004)
6. D. A. Nolan, M.-J. Li, X. Chen, and J. Koh, “Single polarization fibers and applications”, in Optical Fiber Communication Conference and
Exposition and The National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference on CD-ROM (Optical Society of America, Washington DC, 2006) OWA1
7. S. Li, X. Chen, D. V. Kuksenkov, J. Koh, M.-J. Li, L. A. Zenteno, and D. A. Nolan, “Wavelength tunable stretched-pulse mode-locked all-
fiber erbium ring laser with single polarization fiber”, Optics Express 14, 6098-6102 (2006)
8. D. Marcuse, “Influence of curvature on the losses of doubly clad fibers”, Appl. Opt. 21,4208-4213, (1982)
9. J. Olszewski, M. Szpulak, W. Urbanczyk, “Effect of coupling between fundamental and cladding modes on bending losses in photonic
crystal fibers”, Optics Express 13 6015-6022 (2005)
10. Y. Tsuchida, K. Saitoh, and M. Koshiba, “Design and characterization of single-mode holey fibers with low bending losses”, Optics
Express 13, 4770-4779 (2005)
11. M.J. Li, X. Chen, D.A. Nolan, G. E. Berkey, J. Wang, W. A. Wood, and L.A. Zenteno “High Bandwidth Single Polarization Fiber With
Elliptical Central Air Hole”, J. Lightwave Technol. 23, 3454-3460 (2005)
12. Jianming Jin, “The Finite Element Method in Electromagnetics”, Second Edition, John Wiley & Sons, Inc, New York 2002.

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