An equilateral triangle waveguide beam splitter

Abstract

In this paper an optical beam splitter based on an equilateral triangle waveguide (ETW) is studied theoretically and numerically. We show that an optical beam splitter bases on ETW formed only when the length of the waveguide and the location of incident light are appropriate. When the length of the ETW is one third of the self-imaging length, the incident light is divided into three identical and symmetrical beams; while the length of the ETW is one nine of the self-imaging length, the incident light is divided into twenty- seven identical and symmetrical beams, if the number is less than twenty-seven, that is because some of images overlap with each other. It is expected that the results obtained here will help to design a new splitter. © 2011 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.