Abstract: | An efficient numerical modal calculation method for an axially symmetric optical fiber is presented using a numerical Galerkin's method. By decomposing the transverse electric field of a guided wave with Bessel functions of the first kind in cylindrical polar coordinates, we have shown that dispersion characteristics of an optical fiber can be obtained very easily. In order to illustrate the effectiveness of this suggested method, numerical examples are given for a step index fiber, a W-shape depressed inner cladding fiber, and a dispersion-flattened fiber. |