High-isolation polarization-independent optical circulator

A high-isolation polarization-independent optical circulator is reported. The circulator structure can sharply reduce isolation dependency on both the rotation error of a rotator and on extinction ratio of a polarizing beam splitter. As a result, the circulator has high isolation over a wide wavelength and temperature range. A 4-port circulator coupled with single-mode fibers was fabricated. Its measured insertion loss and isolation were <1.8 and >31.5 dB, respectively. Consequently, a loss ratio of over 29.7 dB has been realized. The isolation (which is free from reflections) was measured to be >45.1 dB. It is confirmed that the wavelength range for this kind of isolation over 40-dB is very wide. The measured range was wider than the measurement system limit of 90 nm