Simplified analysis of a polarizing optical fiber

A simplified analysis of anisotropic, polarizing fibers consisting of a circular core placed in a highly elliptical inner cladding is presented. The simplification consists of treating the problem in the scalar approximation and of letting the highly elliptical inner cladding degenerate into two semi-infinite half spaces bounded by plane surfaces. The birefringence of the fiber material is not explicitly included in the analysis. Instead, it is assumed that modes that are linearly polarized at right angles to each other 'see' effectively different isotropic media. The solution yields the field distributions and dispersion curves for guided modes right to their points of cutoff. Leakage losses of modes below cutoff are estimated with low accuracy. The results are useful for designing polarization maintaining fibers or fiber polarizers.<>