Birefringent holey fiber with triple defect

We manufactured and characterized a birefringent holey fiber of new construction. The birefringence in this fiber is induced by the highly elliptical shape of the core, which consists of triple defects in the hexagonal structure. Using the edge finite element method, we calculate the spectral dependence of the phase and the group modal birefringence for E/sub 11/ and E/sub 21/ spatial modes in the idealized and the real structures. We also measured the phase and the group modal birefringence in a wide spectral range for E/sub 11/ and E/sub 21/ spatial modes employing an interferometric technique. All measured parameters showed good agreement with the modeling results.