A simple and effective method for calculating the bending loss and phase enhancement of a bent planar waveguide

A simple and effective method is introduced to calculate the bending loss and phase enhancement of a bent planar waveguide. The wave field is represented in terms of Airy functions and an eigenvalue equation is derived by matching the boundary conditions and the radiation condition in the outer cladding layer The complex propagation constant is obtained by solving the eigenvalue equation with the Newton-Raphson method, and the imaginary part of the propagation constant gives directly the bending loss of the bent waveguide. The results are compared with the previous experimental and numerical results and are shown to be highly accurate and effective. The phase enhancement due to the bending is also studied.