Abstract

The propagation of light in an inhomogeneous planar optical waveguide (Fig. 1) under the weakly guiding approximation is governed by the scalar Helmholtz differential equation.¹ By proper nondimensionalization and introduction of the well-known normalized frequency parameter of the waveguide V, one can rewrite the Helmholtz differential equation as a Schrodinger-type equation²:

© 1988 Optical Society of America