Analytical model for polarization-dependent light propagation in waveguide arrays and applications

Abstract

Under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0 (CC-BY).-- et al. ; We study the polarization properties of elliptical femtosecond-laser-written waveguide arrays. An analytical model is presented to explain the asymmetry of the spatial transverse profiles of linearly polarized modes in these waveguides. This asymmetry produces a polarization-dependent coupling coefficient, between adjacent waveguides, which strongly affects the propagation of light in a lattice. Our analysis explains how this effect can be exploited to tune the final intensity distribution of light propagated through the array and links the properties of a polarizing beam splitter in integrated optical circuits to the geometry of the waveguides. ; The authors acknowledge funding from FONDECYT Grants No. 1110142 and No. 1120067, Programa ICM P10-030-F, Programa de Financiamiento Basal de CONICYT (FB0824/2008), the Spanish government project FIS 2011-25167, the German Ministry of Education and Research (Center for Innovation Competence program, Grant No. 03Z1HN31), Thuringian Ministry for Education, Science and Culture (Research Group Spacetime, Grant No. 11027-514), the Singapore National Research Foundation and Ministry of Education (partly through the Academic Research Fund Tier 3 MOE2012-T3-1-009), and the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development (Grant No. 1157-127.14/2011). ; Peer Reviewed