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Designing Optical Waveguides: Myth and Reality

  • General and Applied Physics
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Abstract

In this paper, a review of numerical methods for design and analysis of nano/micro-sized optical waveguides is carried out. Besides discussing various types of optical waveguides, design of few structures is also presented using FDTD, BPM, and FEM algorithms. Subsequently, few optical devices based upon integration of more than one optical waveguide have also been revealed. Modal effective index analysis and its impact on waveguide designing/signal propagation has also been brought into consideration. Optical waveguides characterization has been carried out by computing second-order and higher order dispersion characteristics, which is vital for information interchange and other nonlinear phenomena. It is anticipated that this effort will help readers in understanding the requirement (subsequently selection) of tools for the design and analysis of optical waveguides.

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Acknowledgments

The first author duly acknowledge discussions and relevant research/simulations support by Prof Dr. Z Zheng from the Department of Photonics Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, PRC, and discussions with Mr. Muzaffar Qazi (a veteran research scientist in the field of lasers and optics).

All the authors are grateful to the editors and reviewers for their hard work and effective and thoughtful suggestions.

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  1. School of Physics and Optoelectronic Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Sciences and Technology, Nanjing, 210044, China

    Muddassir Iqbal, Delin Zhao, YouQiao Ma & Kun Zhong

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  1. Muddassir Iqbal
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Iqbal, M., Zhao, D., Ma, Y. et al. Designing Optical Waveguides: Myth and Reality. Braz J Phys 50, 857–873 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13538-020-00763-w

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