Abstract

We use hydrofluoric acid microdroplets to directly etch highly birefringent biconical fiber tapers from standard single-mode fibers. The fiber tapers have micrometer-sized cross sections, which are controlled by the etching condition. The characteristic teardrop cross section leads to a high group birefringence of $B_G\approx 0.017$ and insertion losses $<0.7\mathrm{dB}$ over waist lengths of about 2.1 mm.

©2012 Optical Society of America

Hydrofluoric acid flow etching of low-loss subwavelength-diameter biconical fiber tapers

Eric J. Zhang, Wesley D. Sacher, and Joyce K. S. Poon
Opt. Express 18(21) 22593-22598 (2010)

Highly birefringent silica microfiber

Yongmin Jung, Gilberto Brambilla, Kyunghwan Oh, and David J. Richardson
Opt. Lett. 35(3) 378-380 (2010)

Miniature tapered photonic crystal fiber interferometer with enhanced sensitivity by acid microdroplets etching

Sun-jie Qiu, Ye Chen, Jun-long Kou, Fei Xu, and Yan-qing Lu
Appl. Opt. 50(22) 4328-4332 (2011)

Probing of ultrahigh optical Q-factors of individual liquid microdroplets on superhydrophobic surfaces using tapered optical fiber waveguides

Alexandr Jonáš, Yasin Karadag, Michael Mestre, and Alper Kiraz
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 29(12) 3240-3247 (2012)

Design of low-loss and highly birefringent hollow-core photonic crystal fiber

P. J. Roberts, D. P. Williams, H. Sabert, B. J. Mangan, D. M. Bird, T.A. Birks, J. C. Knight, and P. St. J. Russell
Opt. Express 14(16) 7329-7341 (2006)