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Waveguide/Fiber Modes
(Slides and figures courtesy of Saleh & Teich)
(Modified, amended and adapted by R. Winton)
From the movie
Warriors of the Net
Waves bounded by geometry: optical
waveguide mode patterns
Optical Waveguide
mode patterns
seen in the end
faces of small
diameter fibers
Optics-Hecht & Zajac Photo by Narinder Kapany
E&M wave bound by two metallic planes:
Wave path analysis
The planar mirror waveguide can be
solved by starting with Maxwells Equations
and the boundary condition that the
parallel component of the E field vanish
at the mirror or by considering that plane
waves already satisfy Maxwells equations
and they can be combined at an angle so that
the resulting wave duplicates itself
Fundamentals of Photonics - Saleh and Teich
Mode number and wave context (metallic reflections)
Fundamentals of Photonics - Saleh and Teich
Mode velocity and polarization degeneracy
Group Velocity derived
by considering the mode
from the view of rays and
geometrical optics
TE and TM mode polarizations
Fundamentals of Photonics - Saleh and Teich
Planar slab dielectric wave guide
Characteristic equation and
self-consistency condition for
identifying allowed values of um
Geometry of planar dielectric guide
Fundamentals of Photonics - Saleh and Teich
(Characteristic equation = consequence of either geometrical or E&M
wave propagation analysis)
Planar slab dielectric wave guide modes
Propagation Constants
Number of modes
vs frequency
The |
m
must be between that expected for
a plane wave in the core and that
expected for a plane wave in the cladding
Note: For a sufficiently
low frequency only 1
mode can propagate
Planar dielectric layer bound modes and
evanescent penetration into cladding
The field components have a transverse variation across the
guide. There are more nodes for higher-order modes. The
changed boundary conditions for the dielectric interface result
in an evanescent penetration into the cladding.
Fundamentals of Photonics - Saleh and Teich
Dielectric layer bounded waves
The ray model is mathematically accurate for dielectric
guides if the additional phase shift due to the evanescent
wave is acknowledged.
Waveguides obey Maxwell equations, which for simple,
isotropic dielectric material with no free charges are:
(Faraday law, Gauss law)
(Ampere law, Gauss law)
And the relationships between field types (for simple,
isotropic dielectric material with no free charges) are:
And if we put all of these equations together (vector analysis) we
end up with the wave equation:
which is the same for the magnetic field:
The rectangular cross-section has the simplest mathematics. The
wave equation in rectangular coordinates is
Which, using becomes
or
or (simpler)
The mathematics that fit the rectangular geometry (shown) and this
equation are in the form of sin( ) and cos( ) functions.
For example the Ez = 0 (TE mode forms) will be:
And there are two mode numbers, one for each geometrical dimension:
m = mode number for x-direction = number of within boundaries x = [0, a]
n = mode number for y-direction = number of within boundaries y = [0, b]
Typical end-view representations of some of these modes
Two Dimensional Rectangular Planar Guide
In two dimensions the transverse field depends on both k
x
and k
y
and the number of modes goes as the square of d/
The number of modes is limited by the maximum angle u
c
that can
propagate
Fundamentals of Photonics - Saleh and Teich
Modes in cylindrical optical fiber are determined
by the wave equation(s) in cylindrical coordinates:
0
1 1
2
2
2
2 2
2
= +
c
c
+
c
c
+
c
c
z
z z z
E q
E
r r
E
r r
E
0
1 1
2
2
2
2 2
2
= +
c
c
+
c
c
+
c
c
z
z z z
H q
H
r r
H
r r
H
Fundamentals of Photonics - Saleh and Teich
Approximations:
Low V, M~4V
2
/
2
+2
higher V, M~V
2
/2
Step index fiber:
The number of modes will be defined
(approximately) by
Behavior of modes vs normalized propagation
constant |/k and cutoff.
Cutoff conditions and evanescent content.
For each mode, there is some value of the normalized frequency V
below which the mode will not be contained (and guided) because the
Bessel function (of the second kind) for the cladding does not go to
zero with increasing r. The evanescent content of the mode is
increased as the boundary condition is approached.
Below V = 2.405, only one mode (= HE
11
) can exist in the fiber.
It is then called a single-mode fiber.
Based on V, the number of modes can be reduced by decreasing the
core radius and by decreasing the relative refractive index between
core and cladding.
Single-mode fibers: V < 2.405
The only mode that can exist is the HE
11
mode.
Birefringence if n
1x
and n
1y
are different.
Graded-index Fiber:
for which the number of modes is
( )
o
|
.
|
\
|
A =
a
r
n r n 2 1
1
( ) A
+
=
2
1
2
akn M
o
o
for r between 0 and a.
Summary: comparison of the number of modes
2-D: Cylindrical Dielectric Guide
0
a
V=2
NA p
The V parameter characterizes
the number of wavelengths that
can fit across the core guiding
region in a fiber.
For the metallic guide the
number of modes is just the
number of wavelengths that
can fit.
For dielectric guides it is the
number that can fit but now
limited by the angular cutoff
characterized by the NA of the
guide
1-D: reflecting metallic planes
1-D: Dielectric slab planes
2-D: Rectangular Metallic guide
2-D: Rectangular dielectric guide
Power propagated along the core
For each mode, the radial profile of the Bessel function Jv(ua)
determines how much of the optical power propagates along
the core, with the rest going down the cladding.
The propagation is cited in terms of a weighted index. The
effective index of the fiber is the weighted average of the core
and cladding indices and is based on how much power
propagates in each regime.
For multimode fiber, each mode has a different effective index.
This is another way of understanding the different speed that
optical signals have in different modes.
Total energy (power dissipated) in the cladding
The total average power propagated in the cladding
is approximately equal to
M
P
P
clad
3
4
=
Power Confinement vs V-Number
This shows the fraction of the power
that is propagating in the cladding
vs the V number for different modes.
V for constant wavelength, and material
indices of refraction is proportional to
the core diameter a
As the core diameter is decreased, more
and more of each mode propagates in
the cladding. Eventually it all propagates
in the cladding and the mode is no longer
guided
(Note misleading ordinate label)
Macrobending Loss
One thing that the geometrical ray view point cannot calculate is the amount of bending loss
encountered by low order modes. Loss goes approximately exponentially with decreasing radius
untill a discontinuity is reached.when the fiber breaks!