PERTURBATION MODEL FOR COMPUTING OPTICAL-FIBER BIREFRINGENCE FROM A 2-DIMENSIONAL REFRACTIVE-INDEX PROFILE

A vector perturbation model for computing optical fiber birefringence for an arbitrary two-dimensional index profile is developed. The vecto r wave equation is solved to yield the unperturbed vector fields for a n azimuthally symmetric refractive index. These fields are used as the basis for the degenerate perturbation analysis. Unlike with the scala r perturbation theory, only first-order perturbation analysis suffices for the computation of birefringence. Computed birefringence for vari ous perturbations are reported. (C) 1995 Optical Society of America