Splice free, cascaded assemblies, of polarization maintaining components, having very low extinction ratio and low loss, give superior performance to spliced components. Extinction ratio shows how well a system tells strong signals from weak ones. A bigger number means the signal is better. Fiber optic signal paths that include splices, connectors, PM couplers, and input - output alignment devices, generally show. Thus it is important to exactly align the polarization axis of the laser source with the polarization axis of the fiber e. This method creates a simple, rugged, compact method of splitting or combining.