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Analysis of mode structure in hollow dielectric waveguide fibers
Mihai Ibanescu1, Steven G Johnson, Marin Soljacić
1Center for Materials Science and Engineering and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
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.