Selective Excitation of Radially and Azimuthally Polarized Optical Fiber Cladding Modes

The dominant polarization properties of the cladding modes excited by tilted fiber Bragg gratings are investigated. Even in conventional cylindrically symmetric fibers, by orienting the input core mode polarization with respect to the tilt plane of the grating cladding modes with near complete radial or azimuthal polarization can be excited at well separated wavelengths, as confirmed by experiments.