Recent progress in research on the finite element method (FEM) for optical waveguide design and analysis is reviewed, focusing on the author's works. After briefly reviewing fundamentals of FEM such as a theoretical framework, a conventional nodal element, a newly developed edge element to eliminate nonphysical, spurious solutions, and a perfectly matched layer to avoid undesirable reflections from computational window edges, various FEM techniques for a guided-mode analysis, a beam propagation analysis, and a waveguide discontinuity analysis are described. Some design examples are introduced, including current research activities on multi-core fibers.

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This paper presents a fundamental locally one-dimensional (FLOD) method for 3-D thermal simulation. We first propose a locally one-dimensional (LOD) method for heat transfer equation within general inhomogeneous media. The proposed LOD method is then cast into compact form and formulated into the FLOD method with operator-free right-hand-side (RHS), which leads to computationally efficient update equations. Memory storage requirements and boundary conditions for both FLOD and LOD methods are detailed and compared. Stability analysis by means of analyzing the eigenvalues of amplification matrix substantiates the stability of the FLOD method. Additionally, the potential instability of the Douglas Gunn (DG) alternating-direction-implicit (ADI) method for inhomogeneous media is demonstrated. Numerical experiments justify the gain achieved in the overall efficiency for FLOD over LOD, DG-ADI and explicit methods. Furthermore, the relative maximum error of the FLOD method illustrates good trade-off between accuracy and efficiency.

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We propose an accurate modeling of the wavelength conversion process by dynamic tuning of a dielectric cavity. Since the process involves the long-distance propagation of light, the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method is not suitable for modeling of the wavelength conversion process owing to the numerical dispersion error of the FDTD method. The proposed modeling is based on the constrained interpolation profile (CIP) method, which was developed in the field of computational fluid dynamics for the purpose of reducing considerably the numerical dispersion error, and is formulated for a one-dimensional problem using an interpolation function of a higher order than that used in the original CIP method. Numerical experiments reveal that the proposed method can achieve accurate prediction of the wavelength conversion process even with a coarse grid model and is superior to both the original CIP method and the FDTD method.

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Performance suveyrance of CPML (Convolutional PML) for FDTD (Finite-Difference Time-Domain) method in cylindrical coordinate system was carried out. The CPML was placed perpendicularly to the radial axis and designed to absorb diverging or converging waves. To be able to analyze microstructured optical fibers and disk/ring resonators we introduced finite axial wavenumbers into the FDTD formulation. We investigated the dependence of reflectivity upon CPML's constituteve parameters such as κ and σ for various curvature radii and the axial wavenumbers. As a result of evaluation we found that the reflectivity gradually increased togather with the increase of the wavenumber. We also confirmed that the absorption performance was of the similar order for the converging waves and the diverging ones provided that their curvature radii were the same.

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In this paper, a novel hybrid technique for analyzing complex antennas around the coated object is proposed, which is termed as “iterative vector fields with Physical Optics (PO)”. A closed box is used to enclose the antennas and the complex field vectors on the box' surfaces can then be obtained using Huygens principle. The equivalent electromagnetic currents on Huygens surfaces are computed by Higher-order Method of Moments (HOB-MoM) and the fields scattered from the coated object are calculated by PO method. In addition, the parallel technique based on Message Passing Interface (MPI) and Scalable Linear Algebra Package (ScaLAPACK) is employed so as to accelerate the computation. Numerical examples are presented to validate and to show the effectiveness of the proposed method on solving the practical engineering problem.

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In this paper, the function expansion based topology optimization is employed to the automatic optimization of the waveguide dispersion property, and the optimum design of low-dispersion slow-light photonic crystal waveguides is demonstrated. In order to realize low-dispersion and large group index, an objective function to be optimized is expressed by the weighted sum of the objective functions for the desired group index and the low-dispersion property, and weighting coefficients are updated through the optimization process.

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In this work, a gate-all-around (GAA) tunneling field-effect transistor (TFET) with InGaAs/Si heterojunction for high-performance and low-standby power operations is studied. Gallium (Ga) compositon (x) in In_1-xGa_xAs source substantially affects the physical properties related with device performances including lattice constant, bandgap energy, effective tunneling mass, channel mobility, and others. Thus, it is worthy investigating the effect of Ga fraction on performances of the proposed heterojunction TFET. For this goal, the device design and its performance evaluation are carried out by technology computer-aided design (TCAD). Direct-current (DC) performances are investigated in terms of on-state current (I_on), off-state current (I_off), current ratio (I_on/I_off), and subthreshold swing (S). Furthermore, it is shown that the device with an n-type Si insertion layer between source and channel demonstrates the enhanced DC characteristics.

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A switchable microwave reflector, reflection of which is actively controlled using diodes was proposed. Pin diodes have large resistance and capacitance without DC bias and small resistance and inductance with DC bias in microwave band. The reflector was designed by using the characteristics. In this paper, effects of a periodic structure on the reflector were verified with simulation and equivalent circuit model. A prototype reflector was able to switch between about -20 dB and -0.1 dB reflection coefficient at 2 GHz.

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To implement a wideband bandpass filter with improved skirt-selectivity and out-band characteristics, a new parallel-coupled three-line unit with two short-circuited stubs symmetrically-loaded at the center line is proposed. Unlike most traditional ones, the passband of the proposed parallel-coupled three-line structure is based on the cross-coupling between non-adjacent lines rather than the direct-coupling between adjacent ones, whereas a pair of attenuation poles is found in the stopbands. After revealing its work mechanism, an efficient filter-design-scheme is correspondingly proposed for the presented structure. Firstly, based on a chebyshev-filter synthesis theory, a wideband passband filter consisting of a parallel-coupled two-line and two short-circuited stubs loaded at the input- and output- ports is designed. Furthermore, by putting a properly-designed 3/4-wavelength stepped-impedance resonator (SIR) in between the parallel-coupled two lines, two attenuation poles are then realized at the frequencies very close to the cutoff ones. Accordingly, the roll-off characteristics of the filter are significantly-improved to greater than 100 dB/GHz. Furthermore, two-section open-ended stubs are used to replace the short-circuited ones to realize a pair of extra attenuation poles in stopbands. To validate the proposed techniques, a wideband filter with a bandwidth of 3–5 GHz (Fractional bandwidth (FBW) = (5 GHz-3 GHz)/4 GHz =50%) was designed, simulated, fabricated and measured. The measured responses of the filter agree well with the simulation and theoretical ones, which validates the effectiveness of the newly-proposed three-line unit and the corresponding design scheme.

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Electromagnetic field analysis is a time-consuming process, and a method involving the use of an FPGA accelerator is one of the attractive ways to accelerate the analysis; the other method involve the use of CPU and GPU. In this paper, we propose an FPGA accelerator dedicated for a two-dimensional finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. This accelerator is based on a two-dimensional single instruction multiple data (SIMD) array architecture. Each processing element (PE) is composed of a six-stage pipeline that is optimized for the FDTD method. Moreover, driving signal generation and impedance termination are also implemented in the hardware. We demonstrate that our accelerator is 11 times faster than existing FPGA accelerators and 9 times faster than parallel computing on the NVIDIA Tesla C2075. As an application of the high-speed FDTD accelerator, the design optimization of a waveguide is shown.

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The body-of-revolution finite-difference time-domain method (BOR-FDTD) based on the locally one-dimensional (LOD) scheme is extended to a frequency-dependent version for the analysis of the Drude and Drude-Lorentz models. The formulation is simplified with a fundamental scheme, in which the number of arithmetic operations is reduced by 40% in the right-hand sides of the resultant equations. Efficiency improvement of the LOD-BOR-FDTD is discussed through the analysis of a plasmonic rod waveguide and a plasmonic grating.

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The main purpose of this paper is to apply the boundary integral equation (BIE) method to the analysis of spoof localized surface plasmons (spoof LSPs) excited in a perfectly conducting cylinder with longitudinal corrugations. Frequency domain BIE schemes based on electric field integral equation (EFIE), magnetic field integral equation (MFIE) and combined field integral equation (CFIE) formulations are used to solve two-dimensional electromagnetic (EM) problems of scattering from the cylinder illuminated by a transverse electric plane wave. In this approach effects of spoof LSPs are included in the secondary surface current and charge densities resulting from the interaction between the plane wave and the cylinder. Numerical results obtained with the BIE schemes are validated by comparison with that of a recently proposed modal solution based on the metamaterial approximation.

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Electromagnetic scattering problems of canonical 2D structures can be analyzed with a high degree of accuracy by using the point matching method with mode expansion. In this paper, we will extend our previous method to 3D electromagnetic scattering problems and investigate the radar cross section of spherical shells and the computational accuracy.

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We describe wavelength-routed switching technology for 25-Gbit/s optical packets using a tunable transmitter that monolithically integrates a parallel-ring-resonator tunable laser and an InGaAlAs electro-absorption modulator (EAM). The transmitter provided accurate wavelength tunability with 100-GHz spacing and small output power variation. A 25-Gbit/s burst-mode optical-packet data was encoded onto the laser output by modulating the integrated EAM with a constant voltage swing of 2 V at 45^°C. Clear eye openings were observed at the output of the 100 GHz-spaced arrayed-waveguide grating with error-free operation being achieved for all packets. The tunable transmitter is very promising for realizing a high-speed, large-port-count and energy-efficient wavelength-routing switch that enables the forwarding of 100-Gbit/s optical packets.

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For next generation planar lightwave circuit (PLC) devices, high function and high-density integration are required as well as downsizing and cost reduction. To realize these needs, high refractive index difference between a core and a clad (Δ) is required. To use PLC for practical applications, silica-based PLC is one of the most attractive candidate. However, degradation of the optical properties and productivity occur when Δ of the core becomes high. Thus, Δ of most of the conventional PLC with GeO₂-SiO₂ core is designed less than 2.5%. In this paper, we report a silica-based ultra-high Δ PLC with ZrO₂-SiO₂ core. 5.5%-Δ ZrO₂-SiO₂ PLC has been realized with low propagation loss and basic characteristics has been confirmed. Potential of chip size reduction of the ZrO₂-SiO₂ PLC is shown.

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Integrated InP polarization converters based on half-ridge structure are studied numerically. We demonstrate that the fabrication tolerance of the half-ridge structure can be extended significantly by introducing a slope at the ridge side and optimizing the thickness of the residual InGaAsP layer. High polarization conversion over 90 % is achieved with the broad range of the waveguide width from 705 to 915 nm, corresponding to a factor-of-two or larger improvement in the fabrication tolerance compared with that of the conventional polarization converters. Finally we present a simple fabrication procedure of this newly proposed structure, where the thickness of the residual InGaAsP layer is controlled precisely by using a thin etch-stop layer.

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Graphene is attracting attention in electrical and optical research fields recently. We measured the optical absorption characteristics and polarization dependence of single-layer graphene (SLG) on sub-micrometer Si waveguide. The results for graphene lengths ranging from 2.5 to 200 μm reveal that the optical absorption by graphene is 0.09 dB/μm with the TE mode and 0.05 dB/μm with the TM mode. The absorption in the TE mode is 1.8 times higher than that in the TM mode. An optical spectrum, theoretical analysis and Raman spectrum indicate that surface-plasmon polaritons in graphene support TM mode light propagation.

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We fabricated high-quality domain-inverted MgO: LiNbO₃ structures with 3.0 and 2.0 μm periods using applying votage to the corrugation electrode. We found that keeping the crystal temperature at 150^°C for 12 hours before applying voltage was effective for obtaining good uniformity. We also demonstrated an application of the structures with 3.0 μm period to electro-optic Bragg deflection modulator for the first time.

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A new wavelength-selective optical modulator was proposed and discussed. The modulator consists of three kinds of distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) integrated in a single straight waveguide. The waveguide can guide TE₀ and TE₁ modes, and an in-line Michelson interferometer is constructed by the three DBRs. An operation-wavelength wave among incident wavelength-division-multiplexed TE₁ guided waves is split into TE₀ and TE₁ guided waves by one of DBRs, and combined by the same DBR to be TE₀ output wave with interference after one of waves is phase-modulated. A modulator using an electro-optic (EO) polymer is designed, and the static performance was predicted theoretically. An operation principle was confirmed experimentally by a prototype device utilizing a thermo-optic effect instead of the EO effect.

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We demonstrate an all-optical non-return-to-zero differential phase shift keying (NRZ-DPSK) to return-to-zero differential phase shift keying (RZ-DPSK) format conversion with wavelength-shift-free and pulsewidth tunable operations by using a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA)-based switch. An NRZ-DPSK signal is injected into the SOA-based switch with an RZ clock, and is converted to RZ-DPSK signal owing to the nonlinear effects inside the SOA. In this scheme, the wavelength of the converted RZ-DPSK signal is maintained as the original wavelength of the input NRZ-DPSK signal during the format conversion. Moreover, the pulsewidth of the converted signal is tunable in a wider operating range from 30 to 60 ps. The format conversion with pulsewidth tunability is based on cross-phase modulation (XPM) and cross-gain modulation (XGM) effects in the SOA. The clear eye diagrams, optical spectra and the bit-error-rate (BER) characteristics show high conversion performance with the wide pulsewidth tuning range. For all cases of the converted RZ-DPSK signal with different pulsewidths, the receiver sensitivities at a BER of 10^-9 for the converted RZ-DPSK signal were 0.7 to 1.5 dB higher than the receiver sensitivity of the input NRZ-DPSK signal.

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Bit error rate characteristic of negative feedback optical amplifier was investigated by manipulating the negative feedback signal intensity fed into the semiconductor optical amplifier together with the input signal. Consequently, bit error rate was reduced as negative feedback signal intensity increases. Suppression towards the unevenness at the power level ‘1’ and overshoot during rising phase on the output signal eye-diagram was recorded. With negative feedback, through gain decrease of 2.4 dB, power penalty improved remarkably by 15 dB.

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An optical flip-flop circuit with a single semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) using two orthogonal polarization states is proposed. The optical set / reset input and output signals are at a single wavelength. The flip-flop circuit consists of an SOA, a polarization combiner, a polarization splitter, two directional couplers, and two phase shifters. No continuous light source is required to operate the circuit. In this paper, we theoretically analyze the operation performance. Polarization dependence in SOA is considered in the analysis at a single wavelength operation, and numerically simulated results are presented. We confirm that the flip-flop circuit with a feedback-loop length of 15 mm can be operated at switching time of around 3 ns by 1 ns set / reset pulses. The flip-flop performance is discussed from viewpoints of transient overshoot and contrast at the steady on-off states.

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An optoelectronic 32-bit serial-to-parallel converter with a novel conversion scheme and shared-trigger configuration has been developed for the label processing of 100-Gbps (25-Gbps × 4 λ) optical packets. No external optical trigger source is required to operate the converter, as the optical packet itself is used to perform self-triggering. Compared to prior optoelectronic label converters, the new device has a much higher gain even while converting labels at higher data rates, and exhibits tolerance to the voltage swing of received packets. The device response is presented together with the experimental demonstration of serial-to-parallel conversion for 4 different labels at 25 Gbps.

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Laser diode capable of high speed direct modulation is one of the key solution for short distance applications due to their low power consumption, low cost and small size features. Realization of high modulation bandwidth for direct modulated laser maintaining the above mentioned feature is needed to enhance the short distance, low cost data transmission. One promising approach to enhance the modulation speed is to increase the photon density to achieve high modulation bandwidth. So to achieve this target, 1.55 μm InGaAsP/InGaAsP multiple quantum well (MQW) asymmetric active multimode interferometer laser diode (active MMI-LD) has been demonstrated [1]. The split pumping concept has been applied for the active MMI-LD and significant enhancement of electrical to optical 3 dB down frequency bandwidth (f_3dB) up to 8 GHz has been successfully confirmed. The reported high bandwidth for split pump active MMI-LD is around 3.5 times higher than the previously reported maximum 3 dB bandwidth (2.3 GHz) of active MMI-LD without split pumping section. That shows, the splitted multimode pumping section behind the electrically isolated modulation section can potentially improve the modulation bandwidth of active MMI-LD. Clear and open eye diagram had also been confirmed for 2.5 Gbps, (2⁷-1) pseudo random bit sequence (PRBS) modulation.

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We investigate resolution improvement in optical quantization with keeping high sampling rate performance in optical sampling. Since our optical quantization approach uses power-to-wavelength conversion based on soliton self-frequency shift, a spectral compression can improve resolution in exchange for sampling rate degradation. In this work, we propose a different approach for resolution improvement by parallel use of dispersion devices so as to avoid sampling rate degradation. Additional use of different dispersion devices can assist the wavelength separation ability of an original dispersion device. We demonstrate the principle of resolution improvement in 3 bit optical quantization. Simulation results based on experimental evaluation of 3 bit optical quantization system shows 4 bit optical quantization is achieved by parallel use of dispersion devices in 3 bit optical quantization system. The maximum differential non-linearity (DNL) and integral non-linearity (INL) are 0.49 least significant bit (LSB) and 0.50 LSB, respectively. The effective number of bits (ENOB) estimated to 3.62 bit.

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