OPTICAL WAVE GUIDE AND METHOD OF TRANSMITTING ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVE THEREIN

摘要

Conventional optical waveguides are of very small diameter making handling and coupling difficult. Also the HE11 mode is used and this can give rise to contamination where inhomogeneities arise in the waveguide. The waveguide of the present invention has a tube of higher permittivity optical material, with a core of lower permittivity optical material and cladding again of lower permittivity material. The critical dimension is the thickness of the tube and the tube diameter can therefore be made very much larger than that of the conventional optical waveguide. Such a waveguide when properly excited will support the HE11 wave as a single mode or alternatively the TE01 mode as a pure wave. Methods of launching and propagating these modes are described.