Use of a novel wide-angle FD-BPM for loss performance assessment in randomly perturbed photonic crystal fibers.

A novel wide-angle finite-difference beam-propagation method is applied to the analysis of confinement losses in photonic crystal fibers (PCFs). The method is formulated in terms of the locally one-dimensional (LOD) technique and Padé polynomials. It was found that the wide-angle approach allows an acceleration of the convergence rate of up to 50% for the effective-index imaginary part when compared to paraxial formalism. In this framework, an important aspect of PCF structures, namely, the random structural variation of the hole radius and pitch, which occurs during the fabrication process of these devices, is investigated in this paper. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 45: 568–573, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.20882 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]