Analysis of the optical axis misalignment effect on propagation characteristics of anisotropic dielectric waveguides using FD-FD method

The finite-difference in the frequency domain (FD-FD) method is formulated to study the dispersion characteristics of anisotropic dielectric waveguides with their optical axes not aligned with the coordinate system axes. In this analysis the optical axes are initially assumed to be aligned with the coordinate system axes such that the electric permittivity and magnetic permeability tensors are diagonal. The optical axes of the anisotropic dielectric are then rotated an angle /spl theta/ (or /spl phi/) with respect to the coordinate system axes. While the FD-FD method developed is general, it is applied here only to waveguides containing uniaxial anisotropic dielectrics. The results show that accurate optical axis orientation is important in the design of dielectric waveguides.