MODAL CUTOFF CONDITION FOR

HYPOCYCLOIDAL OPTICAL FIBRE

 INTRODUCTION
 The transmission properties of an optical waveguide dependent not only on
its structural characters, but also on structural differences.
Apart from different refractive index profiles, a large number of cross-
sectional shapes of the core have been investigated.
These include circular, elliptical, rectangular, triangular, and many other
shapes .
 One of the problems encountered in an analytical study of the waveguide
with a core having a square or a polygonal cross section has to do with
applying the boundary conditions in the presence of the corners.
 In the present communication we study analytically the modal cutoff
properties of an optical waveguide having a cross section whose shape
resembles a distorted square, so that the sides are made concave. Such
curves are known as Lame curves.
 HYPOCYCLOID CROSS-SECTION
 One of these curves is the four-cusped hypocycloid with the equation -

X 2/3
Y 2/3
a 2/3
.
where a is a parameter representing the size.
 The availability of a simple algebraic equation of the curve simplifies the analysis,
although it cannot be claimed that the corner problem is completely eliminated.
 From considerations of symmetry they have dealed with only the part of the curve in
the first quadrant. The modal characteristic equation for a waveguide with such a
cross section has been derived here under the scalar wave
approximation.
CROSS-SECTIONAL VIEW OF FOUR-CUSPED
HYPOCYCLOID WAVE-GUIDE
 Theoretical derivations
 The shape of the cross section is that of a four-cusped hypocycloid represented
by the equation
X 2/3
Y 2/3
a 2/3
.
 The structure of the waveguide suggests that They use an appropriate
coordinate system. To obtain such coordinates one uses the points of intersection
of two sets of normal curves on the cross-sectional plane of the waveguide. One
of these sets is represented by hypocycloids with the changing parameter j
connected with the size, and the other set consists of curves normal to the
hypocycloids with a varying size parameter h.
 They have omitted some basic calculations and finally obtain following
transformation equations:
•The scale factor h1 and h2 for the coordinates  and are given by
1/ 3
( 8/3
 8/3
)  
h1  and h2    .
3  
4/3

The third coordinate is left unaltered so that instead of coordinates X, Y, Z. we now have the
new coordinates  , , Z. 
The scalar wave equation in the Cartesian coordinates is
given by -
where Ez is the z component of the electric field. Converting this equation to the
new coordinates and assuming a harmonic variation with respective z and t, we
have -
Putting equation (3) in (2) we get two equations in E(z) direction
as:

In magnetic direction we get the following equations :

A,B,C,D are unknown constants.

According to the weak guidance approximation , the tangential
electric and magnetic field components and their
derivatives are continuous across the boundary .Appling the
appropriate boundary conditions we obtain the following Bessel’s
equation:

Here now they find the solution for the characteristic equation at
mode cut off. At cutoff, the field in the cladding detaches itself from
the guide and does not decay; that is, at cutoff w tends zero .Applying
this we get:
Discussion
The modal behavior of hypocycloidal fiber is given by the characteristic
equation . In order to find out the physical meaning of the cutoff equation they
consider the effective V parameter for the waveguide as
1
Veff  (2 /  )a eff (n1  n2 )
2 2 2

where a is a length representing the linear size of the core. In the case of the
circle, a eff represents the radius of the circle, and in the case of the square it is
equal to half the length of the side.
The area of the hypocycloid is much smaller than the area of a circle of radius
a or the area of a square of side 2 a, the value of a(effective) should be taken
as a suitable fraction of the parameter a. This also indicates that a is much less
than a. We notice that the area of the hypocycloid with the parameter a is
three-eighths of the area of a circle of radius a. If we now take two squares with
the sides a1 2and a so that their areas are, respectively, equal to the areas of a
hypocycloid and a circle, the ratio a1/a2 = 3.
8
Now putting this value of ratio in above equation we obtain different cut-off
modes.
 RESULT
The typical values n1=.4996 , n2 =1.47013,
and a s 16 mm; from this the V ’s, the cutoff
values of a few lower-order modes, are
Obtained as 2.3, 6.1, and 9.9. The nontrivial cutoff
V values of circular fiber are well known to be
3.83, 7.02, and 10.17 (for lower-order modes, i.e.,
zero order) under the weak guidance
approximation and the cutoff values of a
waveguide with a square cross section are 0.6
and 1.5 (for lower-order modes). In view of these
results, we may conclude that the cutoff values
Veff of a hypocycloid are comparable to the cutoff V values of a circle fiber, but
somewhat less in value. However, the cutoff V values of the waveguide of square cross
section are much smaller.
 Conclusion
The characteristic equation for an optical waveguide with
a hypocycloidal cross section is obtained. This cross section can be
thought of as having the shape of a distorted square and leads to a
tolerance analysis for deformation in a square waveguide. The complex
geometry makes the analysis of modes difficult. With some simplifications
the cutoff condition under the weak-guidance condition is obtained.
A brief comparison is then made with the cutoff condition for the
conventional fiber and also that of a waveguide with a square cross-
section.