Polarization-Maintaining Enhanced Rotary Mechanical Splice: Recent Results.

Recent results on the first passive mechanical splice that can also be used actively on a rectangular polarization- maintaining fiber are reported. An external polarization axis reference on the polarization-maintaining fiber allows accurate axial alignment without rotational micropositioners. Mean splice extinction ratios were measured to be -28.6 and -33.4 dB with splice losses of 1.61 and 1.71 dB for passive and active alignment, respectively. Polarization eigenaxis angular offsets are estimated which indicate that misalignment between the rectangular polarization- maintaining fiber geometric axis and the polarization axis is less than 2 degrees.