Polarising fibre coupler with high extinction ratio

Fused polarising fibre couplers have been fabricated using single-polarisation single-mode fibres. When circularly polarised light is fed into the coupler, one of the two orthogonal polarisation modes suffers strong attenuation, and only one polarisation mode couples in the fused biconical taper region. The extinction ratio of the coupler is 41 dB at a wavelength λ = 1.3 μm with a coupling ratio of 48:52.