Vector–H finite element solution of GaAs/GaAlAs rib waveguides

A vector H-field formulation is used here for the solution of GaAs/GaAlAs rib waveguides. The material distribution and guide cross-section can be arbitrary, and dielectric constants are lossfree but arbitrarily anisotropic. The penalty method has been used to eliminate spurious solutions and to improve eigenvector quality. The effect of using infinite elements and the influence of artificial boundary conditions has been illustrated. Computed results are given and compared with the less accurate effective-index method and scalar variational method at 1.15 μm wavelength. For the finite element solutions we have introduced Aitken's extrapolation to speed up the convergence.