Specialty Optical Fibers Handbook

acceptance. Today, form-birefringent fibers, tracing their lineage back to the

original Andrew E-core fiber, are still used in KVH’s range of FOGs.

8.4.3 Microstructure (’’Holey’’) Fibers

Although the original form-birefringent technology may have been sidelined

to a significant degree, it is interesting to note that in the future, form-birefrin-

gent designs, in the guise of microstructure fibers [17] (also referred to as ‘‘holey’’

or sometimes ‘‘photonic crystal’’ or ‘‘photonic band-gap’’ fibers), may prove to

offer the ultimate in terms of PM performance. Although there has been much

debate about the precise mechanism by which these fibers work, ...