Polarization and dispersive properties of elliptical-hole photonic crystal fibers

We survey the properties of photonic crystal fibers with elliptical air holes, examining mode shapes, birefringence, group velocity walkoff and dispersion, and cutoff conditions. We find new types of behavior for each quantity and demonstrate the possibility of achieving large birefringence with zero walkoff in the single-mode regime. We show that the dispersive properties of the vector modes are closely tied to those of the so-called fundamental space filling modes, and that at long wavelengths, the fibers exhibit a single-polarization single-mode regime of propagation without the presence of material anisotropy.