Holey fibers with random cladding distributions

We provide what is to our knowledge the first direct confirmation that Ligh t can he guided in a holey fiber with randomly distributed air holes in the cladding. We also show that many of the features previously attributed to periodic holey fibers, in particular, single-mode guidance at all wavelengt hs, can also be obtained with random holey fibers. We provide insight into exactly how sensitive a holey fiber's optical properties are to the details of the cladding profile. (C) 2000 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: 0 60.2280, 060.2400.