ABSTRACT
Optical waveguiding confining light from a light source to a medium with a nearly uniform structure in the direction of propagation and then guiding it to a target region. The direction of propagation of light will be set as the z-direction, and with the propagation constant as ß, the z-direction dependency of the electromagnetic field is assumed to be exp(-jßz). The chapter discusses the structure of various optical waveguides and the characteristics of their guided modes. Then, the single-mode condition for the asymmetric three-layer slab waveguide is given by from, cutoff is also seen to exist in the fundamental mode in the case of asymmetric slab waveguide. The chapter presents a summary of the interference matrix method that was developed by the authors in their laboratory to analyze leaky waveguides, wherein, the refractive index in the core is lower than the refractive index in the cladding.
