Evanescent energy in square and circular fibers.

A finite element method is presented to find the propagation characteristics of an optical fiber with arbitrary cross section. This method uses a non-local boundary operator to reduce the infinite problem (open waveguide) to a bounded one. Evanescent energy in circular and square fibers of the same core area are computed and compared to show that square fibers can be effectively used in single molecule detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]