Abstract

Birefringence and polarization dispersion caused by bending and lateral forces in both single-clad and double-clad high-birefringence elliptical fibers have been studied by using a modified coupled-mode theory. The birefringence effects of fiber parameters, such as normalized frequency, refractive-index difference, and fiber core ellipticity and inner cladding thickness due to bending and force have been investigated both theoretically and numerically. A larger core ellipticity or refractive index difference causes a larger birefringence change to be brought about by bending and lateral forces. For the case of single-mode fiber, the results are compared with those obtained by the LP mode-approximation method, and good agreement is found to exist between them.

© 1990 Optical Society of America