Liquid crystal assisted optical fibres.

Microstructured fibres which consist of a circular step index core and a liquid crystal inclusion running parallel to this core are investigated. The attenuation and electro-optic effects of light coupled into the core are measured. Coupled mode theory is used to study the interaction of core modes with the liquid crystal inclusion. The experimental and theoretical results show that these fibres can exhibit attenuation below 0.16 dB cm(-1) in off-resonant wavelength regions and still have significant electro-optic effects which can lead to a polarisation extinction of 6 dB cm(-1).