Analysis of mode structure in hollow dielectric waveguide fibers

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2003 Apr;67(4 Pt 2):046608. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.67.046608. Epub 2003 Apr 17.

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze the electromagnetic mode structure of an OmniGuide fiber-a hollow dielectric waveguide in which light is confined by a large index-contrast omnidirectional dielectric mirror. In particular, we find that the modes in an OmniGuide fiber are similar to those in a hollow metallic waveguide in their symmetries, cutoff frequencies, and dispersion relations. We show that the differences can be predicted by a model based on a single parameter-the phase shift upon reflection from the dielectric mirror. The analogy to the metal waveguide extends to the transmission properties, resulting in the identification of the TE01 mode as the lowest-loss mode of the OmniGuide fiber.