An analysis of W-shaped plastic optical fibers by WKB approximation

Abstract

© 2016, Springer Science+Business Media New York. The graded-index plastic optical fiber, because of its relatively large bandwidth and core diameter, is the type of fiber that is used in a majority of the fiber optic systems in existence today. Especially the type of optical fiber known as the W-fiber has some desirable properties and unique characteristics not found in matched-cladding fibers. In this work, by Wentzel–Kramers–Brillouin (WKB) method, the total number of modes of the graded-index W-shaped plastic optical fiber is theoretically reviewed. The obtained formula for the total number of modes of W-shaped optical fibers arises from an approximation of the WKB integral, which preserves the general validity requirements of the method. Also, by assumption that all modes were excited uniformly, the computational analyses investigating near- and far-field power distribution in W-shaped plastic optical fibers was carried out.