Coupled-wave Analysis of the Bragg Effect Waveguide Coupler

A coupled-wave analysis is presented for the Bragg effect waveguide coupler. This device consists of a slanted volume phase grating which is integrated inside the lightguiding layer of an optical waveguide. The wave propagation is described by a set of leaky wave modes. Self-consistency relations are derived to determine the angular mode spectrum and the corresponding radiation loss coefficients. A maximum input coupling efficiency of 80% is predicted for an incident Gaussian beam. The power of a waveguide mode should be emitted into a single output beam reaching an efficiency of almost 100%.