Numerical analysis of photonic crystal fibres

Numerical methods for the simulation of photonic structures bring serious advantages in the field of research and design. Well prepared modelling techniques allow simulation of the demanded characteristics prior to fabrication of the device, or in some case the experimentally observed properties of fabricated devices to be understood in detail. This thesis describes work to develop a numerical algorithm based on the real distance paraxial finite-difference vectorial beam propagation method (FDVBPM). The algorithm is based on Maxwell Equations, simplified to the time independent diffusion equation. The program was developed at the National Institute of Telecommunications in Warsaw. This work will describe the validation process of the code, and the problems encountered when the presented method was applied to the simulation of Photonic Crystal Fibres (PCF)