Observation of polarization property in near-field optical imaging by a polarization-maintaining fiber probe

We fabricated an original near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) fiber probe made of polarization-maintaining and attenuation-reducing (PANDA)-type polarization-maintaining optical fiber, and observed the polarization property of propagation light in a polymer optical waveguide. The distribution of the transmission coefficient in polarization angles through this NSOM probe showed that the linear polarization is maintained in the two crossing directions: the fast and slow axes. The polarization degree parallel to the slow axis decreases from 1000 : I to 2 : I by bending the fiber probe and the decrease is independent of the bending direction. Using this PANDA-type NSOM probe, we investigated the polarization property of periodic intensity modulation. it was found that the intensity modulation was observed clearly with the electric vector parallel to the radius direction of the waveguide, but was observed vaguely with the electric vector perpendicular to the radius direction.