  The effects of short range disorder on the polarisation characteristics of
light in photonic crystal waveguides were investigated using finite difference
time domain simulations with a view to investigating the stability of
polarisation singularities. It was found that points of local circular
polarisation (C-points) and contours of linear polarisation (L-lines) continued
to appear even in the presence of high levels of disorder, and that they
remained close to their positions in the ordered crystal. These results are a
promising indication that devices exploiting polarisation in these structures
are viable given current fabrication standards.
