Can circularly polarized light be transmitted through a fiber without loss of this polarization or will it just end up as linearly polarized light on the other side? Does polarization-maintaining fiber only preserve linear polarization?
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1$\begingroup$ Yes. There is that and more! Light can be given an optical orbital angular momentum: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_angular_momentum_of_light because individual photons can prepared in such a way that they spins are adding up to higher order moments. A data modulation scheme based on optical angular momentum has already been demonstrated in the laboratory and it is expected, that OAM-modulation based fibers can potentially multiply the effective data rate of optical fibers by many times again. $\endgroup$– CuriousOneCommented Oct 15, 2014 at 4:59
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1$\begingroup$ Typical PM-fiber is designed for linear polarization. As akmetelli's answer points out, there are special fibers for circular polarization. $\endgroup$– Carl WitthoftCommented Oct 15, 2014 at 11:30
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There are "circular-polarization-maintaining fibers" (you may wish to google them). One can get such fibers by introducing circular birefringence, say, by twisting the fiber.
