Analysis of optical waveguide discontinuities

A novel approach for analyzing discontinuity problems in optical waveguides is presented. The method is a combination of the vector-finite-element method and the least-squares boundary residual method. The vector-H-field-finite-element method is capable of providing accurate eigenvalues and eigenvectors for a wide range of optical waveguide problems, including arbitrary shape, arbitrary index distribution, and anisotropic materials. The least-squares boundary residual method matches the continuity of tangential fields in the least-squares sense, taking into account many modes at the discontinuity plane, to give the general scattering matrix. A few results are presented to show the usefulness of the approach.>