Design of nonreciprocal couplers for integrated optics

Abstract

Integrated optical elements with gyrotropic magnetooptic materials are of large interest for the realization of optical isolators and circulators in integrated optical devices. We present a finite-difference scheme for the calculation of nonreciprocal effects in such structures. The method is applied to the numerical simulation of nonreciprocal couplers. These devices are based on the direction dependent coupling of modes between two neighboring magnetooptic waveguides. From the calculated results some guidelines for the optimization of such couplers are derived. © Copyright 1994 SPIE.