Effects of waveguide surface micro-structure on the transmission of light

Abstract

We theoretically model two-dimensional waveguides with different surface perturbations and examine the effects of these perturbations on the transmission of light with wavelengths in visible and IR parts of the spectrum. Surface perturbations are modelled as sine, square and triangular waves with different amplitudes and periods, and as volumetric fractal-voronoi noise with different amplitudes and at different length scales. We use refractive indices which are characteristic for soft matter and solid-state photonics, in order to examine the effects of surface perturbations in different well-known systems. The effects of surface perturbations greatly depend on the wavelength and polarization of the incident light.