General Waveguides

Modern photonic integrated circuits make use of a variety of strip and rib waveguide designs. The propagation of light in these waveguides cannot be solved for analytically. Various numerical techniques have been developed for these waveguides. This chapter discusses the method of lines. The fields and mode indices are derived as well as algorithm simplifications using symmetry. A technique to calculate the waveguide coupling efficiency to a lens using the overlap integral is derived. Examples of strip and rib waveguides, dispersion curves and avoided crossings are presented.