Polarization-maintaining fibers are applied in devices where the polarization state cannot be allowed to drift, e.g. as a result of temperature changes. Examples are fiber interferometers and certain fiber lasers. A disadvantage of using such fibers is that usually an exact alignment of the polarization direction is required, which makes production more cumbersome. Also, propagation losses are higher than for standard fiber, and not all kinds of fibers are easily obtained in polarization-preserving form.

The polarization extinction ratio of light coming out of a polarization-maintaining fiber may be lower than that at the fiber input. This can occur as a result of imperfect alignment of the polarization direction at the input, but also be due to some residual degree of mode mixing. The latter effect can be strongly increased by mechanical stress (e.g. in a fiber connector). For applications requiring a very high polarization extinction ratio (e.g. in interferometry), it can be necessary to use an additional high-quality polarizer after the fiber.

Polarization-maintaining fibers should not be confused with single-polarization fibers, which can guide only light with a certain linear polarization.

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