All propagation modes of large-core multimode optical fibers with an arbitrary core profile.

ABSTRACT

Plastic optical fibers are typical large-core multimode optical fibers. High-bandwidth graded-index plastic optical fibers, which support a great number of propagation modes compared with conventional silica-glass multimode optical fibers, were developed in the 1990s. However, because they support a great number of propagation modes, their modal analyses have been limited to the WKB analysis. We obtain all the propagation modes of a convex-index large-core multimode optical fiber by use of the finite-element method, which has a strong advantage for arbitrary core profiles.