Patent ID: 7095911

Claim:
A chiral polarizer for achieving polarization of incident light, the incident light having orthogonal elliptically polarized components of a first eccentricity, comprising: an elongated chiral optical fiber being of a predetermined handedness, the chiral optical fiber having a first end, a second end, a core, having a core refractive index and a core size, disposed along said fiber's longitudinal axis, and a cladding, having a cladding refractive index and a cladding size, surrounding said core, said chiral optical fiber further having a predetermined pitch profile representative of a variation of a pitch P of said chiral optical fiber between said first end and said second end, wherein in accordance with said predetermined pitch profile, an entry inverse pitch at said entry end, is substantially different from an exit inverse pitch at said exit end, such that one elliptically polarized component of the incident light entering said first end is substantially scattered, while another elliptically polarized component of the incident light is substantially transmitted and converted to an exit elliptically polarized light component having a second eccentricity different from the first eccentricity.