Fabrication and study of microstructured optical fibers with elliptical holes

We report the fabrication of what are believed to be the first microstructured optical fibers with uniformly oriented elliptical holes. A high degree of hole ellipticity is achieved with a simple technique that relies on hole deformation during fiber draw. Both form and stress-optic birefringence are characterized over a broad wavelength range. These measurements are in excellent agreement with numerical modeling and demonstrate a birefringence as high as $1.0\times {10}^{-4}$ at a wavelength of 850 nm.