Semiempirical relation for curved optical waveguide design in the edge-guided mode regime

Author

Burton, R.S. ; Schlesinger, T.E.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Volume

11

Issue

12

fYear

1993

fDate

12/1/1993 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1965

Lastpage

1969

Abstract

A semiempirical relation has been developed for determining the minimum allowable radius of curvature of a circular waveguide with an edge-guided fundamental mode. The specified parameters are the wavelength, the effective refractive index of the waveguide, the lateral index step, and the allowable radiation loss coefficient. This relation was fitted and verified against numerically evaluated solutions of Maxwell´s equations in two dimensions for lateral index steps 0.01<ΔN<0.1, for effective indices of refraction 3<N<4 (appropriate for the GaAs/Al_xGa_1-xAs system), and for radiation losses of 10^-4 <α_r<100 cm^-1. The difference between the results of solving Maxwell´s equations and the semiempirical relation over these parameter ranges was determined to be less than 2%

Keywords

optical losses; optical waveguide theory; refractive index; Maxwell´s equations; allowable radiation loss coefficient; circular waveguide; curved optical waveguide design; edge-guided fundamental mode; edge-guided mode regime; effective indices of refraction; effective refractive index; lateral index step; minimum allowable radius of curvature; numerically evaluated solutions; semiempirical relation; two dimensions; Gallium arsenide; Maxwell equations; Optical design; Optical losses; Optical refraction; Optical variables control; Optical waveguide theory; Optical waveguides; Propagation losses; Refractive index;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Lightwave Technology, Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0733-8724

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/50.257957

Filename

257957