Smooth approximation of a varying refractive-index profile and its application in the computation of light waves

In this paper, the smooth approximation of light waves is studied for an open optical waveguide with a distinct refractive-index profile, which involves high-precision computation of the eigenmodes and corresponding eigenfunctions. During analysis, the refractive-index function is first approximated by a quadratic spline interpolation function. Since the quadratic spline function is a polynomial of degree two in every sub-interval (sub-layer), it is equivalent to a piecewise polynomial of degree two, based on which, the corresponding Sturm-Liouville eigenvalue problem of the Helmholtz operator in sub-layer can be solved analytically by the Kummer functions. Finally, the approximate dispersion equation is established to the TE case. Obviously, the approximate dispersion equations converge fast to the exact ones, as the maximum value of the sub-interval sizes tends to zero. Furthermore, eigenmodes may be obtained by Muller’s method with suitable initial values. To refine the accuracy, the equidistant partition and the non-equidistant partition are applied to divide the interval. Numerical simulations show that the eigenfunctions of the spline interpolation are much smoother than the ones with piecewise interpolation. In addition, the non-equidistant partition can help improve the accuracy and the order of convergence of general solutions reaches the third.