  In this work we propose an encoding and decoding framework for staircase
codes based on non-systematic polar codes as component codes. The staircase
structure allows for efficient parallelized decoding, while the polar component
codes allow to benefit from the flexible structure and efficient soft-decision
decoding algorithms. To enhance the performance of the polar staircase codes,
we concatenate the polar component codes with cyclic redundancy check (CRC)
outer codes, and we add interleavers within the staircase structure that are
specific to polar code properties. The CRCs also allow to substantially reduce
the decoding complexity. Simulation results evaluate the gain brought by our
proposed techniques, and analyze the dependence of the error-correction
performance on code and decoder parameters. Comparison with the state of the
art on staircase polar codes shows an improvement in BER up to 0.9~dB, or
considerable complexity reduction at the same BER.
