Refractive-Index Profiling of Buried Planar Waveguides by an Inverse Wentzel–Kramer–Brillouin Method

Author

Chiang, Kin Seng ; Liu, Qing ; Lor, Kar Pong

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electron. Eng., City Univ. of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Volume

26

Issue

11

fYear

2008

fDate

6/1/2008 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1367

Lastpage

1373

Abstract

We propose an inverse Wentzel-Kramer-Brillouin (WKB) method for the construction of the refractive-index profiles of buried graded-index planar waveguides from the measured effective indexes of the guided modes. Our method involves experimental determination of the location of the peak index in the buried profile, measurement of the effective indexes in air, and an index-matching liquid, and application of a searching algorithm to find the best-fit profile through inverting the WKB equations. We present numerical examples and experimental results to demonstrate the performance of the method.

Keywords

WKB calculations; eigenvalues and eigenfunctions; optical planar waveguides; optical testing; refractive index; refractive index measurement; WKB eigenvalue equation; buried graded-index planar waveguides; effective refractive index measurement; index-matching liquid; inverse Wentzel-Kramer-Brillouin method; refractive-index profiling; Diffusion processes; Optical films; Optical planar waveguides; Optical refraction; Optical surface waves; Optical variables control; Optical waveguides; Planar waveguides; Refractive index; Shape; Buried waveguide; Wentzel–Kramer–Brillouin (WKB) method; graded-index waveguide; optical planar waveguide; optical waveguide; refractive-index measurement;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Lightwave Technology, Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0733-8724

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JLT.2008.923637

Filename

4542935