Abstract:We examine the existence of critical wavelength in transmission spectrum of a Directional Coupler, employing GeO 2 doped SMF and show that it differs significantly from that observed in SMS structures. Origin of critical-wavelength is also explained.
IntroductionRecently the existence of a critical wavelength has been predicted and subsequently demonstrated in the transmission spectrum of fiber-optic single-multi-mode structures [1][2][3]. The critical wavelength has two distinct properties (i) the spectral shift of transmission spectrum is of opposite nature on either side of the critical wavelength, and (ii) sensitivity is highest for transmission maximum/minimum nearest to the critical wavelength. Since the critical wavelength has been demonstrated to exist due to the modal interference of various modes in GeO 2 doped MMF, motivated by such finding we examine the existence of any such wavelength in directional coupler (DC) which is essentially based upon modal interference among the super modes of two single mode waveguides constituting the directional coupler. In this paper we show that the directional coupler indeed supports the critical wavelength but the nature of the transmission spectrum is slightly different from the one observed for SMS structure. In addition with the opposite spectral shift of the transmission spectrum observed among the critical wavelength for SMS structure [1-3], we show that for a DC there exists a wavelength smaller than the critical wavelength below which the spectrum again changes its nature of spectral shift. However, in agreement with the critical wavelength of SMS structure the sensitivity has been observed to be maximum for the transmission maximum or minimum nearest to the critical wavelength.