Quasioptics of second-order Bragg interaction in a thin film optical waveguide

For the transverse magnetic mode, the second-order Bragg interaction of the guided and the radiated waves is considered for a thin film dielectric waveguide with a corrugated film-cover interface. A set of four canonical equations for the deexcitation and the excitation of the guided waves are derived by employing a quasioptical technique. The governing equations are applied for the treatment of a surface-emitting distributed feedback laser. Some design criteria are obtained for optimizing the performance of the laser. When these design criteria are used, the laser characteristics are insensitive to small changes in the physical parameters about their designed values. Numerical results are presented to illustrate the performance of the laser. The shape of the surface relief grating is found to play a vital role in determining the gain threshold and the gain margin of the laser. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.