A fiberized highly birefringent glass micrometer-size ridge waveguide

•We report the fabrication of a fiberized micrometer-size ridge waveguide.•No extra loss from the fabrication process was observed in the fiberized ridge waveguide.•A high birefringence of 9.5 × 10−3 was measured in the waveguide at 1.55 μm.•We propose to use the fiberized ridge waveguide as a highly sensitive optical sensing device.•Fusion splicing was successfully employed to splice the waveguide to a conventional silica fiber.

We report the fabrication of a fiberized micrometer-size ridge waveguide using a sheet-stacking method. The fabrication conditions for maintaining the ridge geometry with micrometer dimensions were investigated and discussed. A loss of 3.9 dB/m was measured at 1.55 μm in the fiber ridge waveguide, showing no extra loss above the bulk loss of the glass. A high birefringence of 9.5 × 10−3 was measured in the waveguide at 1.55 μm which is close to the reported highest birefringence (1.1 × 10−2) in optical fibers. Fusion splicing was successfully employed to splice the fabricated waveguide to a conventional silica fiber with reasonable loss.