Dynamics of an optical signal in a multimode waveguide structure

Abstract

A mathematical model of linear dynamic distortions of average signal power in a planar optical waveguide stemming from the intermodal coupling and dispersion of waveguide modes caused by macroscopic bends and irregularities of the optical waveguide surface has been developed on the basis of pulse intermodal scattering matrix. It is shown that the elements of this matrix are determined at a waveguide segment whose length greatly exceeds the correlation scale of the field of irregularities but is much smaller than the normalization length of waveguide modes and are described by rectangular functions with a duration proportional to the relative velocity of the corresponding modes. The dependences of the pulse intermodal scattering matrix on the intensities of absorption, Rayleigh scattering, and optical signal scattering from waveguide irregularities have been established. It is shown that, at waveguide lengths exceeding the normalization length, the optical signal shape becomes almost stable and can be expressed in terms of the pulse characteristic of an integrating circuit. It has been established that irregularities of the film in a bent optical waveguide lead not only to additional attenuation but also to enhancement of multimode distortion. A matrix method is proposed for taking into account these distortions, which is based on the effect of equalization (scrambling) of the signal energy over the spectrum of the bent waveguide modes. The model developed was used to process the experimental data on the dynamics of a signal in a weakly guiding multimode polymer optical fiber in order to estimate the parameters of attenuation and irregularities of the waveguide surface.