MULTIMODE INHOMOGENEOUS FIBER COUPLERS

A numerical technique to obtain the wave behavior in tightly coupled multimode fibers with inhomogeneous indices is introduced in this paper. The specific problem of the coupling characteristics of two parallel multimode fibers whose index profile is parabolic is treated in detail. It was found that in spite of the fact that rather complicated coupling behavior is observed when multimodes exist, total guide power still exchanges among the fibers in a periodic manner, and the coupling length still increases monotonically as a function of the separation distance between the fibers. It has also been demonstrated that by simply specifying the index profiles of the coupling structure (provided that the profiles are slowly varying), the coupling characteristics can be generated with our technique. © 1979 Optical Society of America.