Refractometers and tunable components based on side-polished fibers with multimode overlay waveguides: role of the superstrate

A normal mode analysis is applied to the investigation of the role of the superstrate in terms of its refractive index and thickness in estimating the performance of fiber refractometers and the tunability of fiber components based on evanescent coupling of a side-polished fiber to a multimode overlay waveguide. The model is shown to yield a complete transfer function and information about all the major characteristics of such in-line fiber devices. The results closely match the trends of the reported experiments.