Variational analysis of single-mode inhomogeneous planar optical waveguide

Abstract
Some trial fields are proposed for obtaining the propagation characteristics of single-mode inhomogenous planar waveguides, based on the scalar variational principle. A comparison with other trial fields and the exact numerical results shows that the authors' results are more accurate than those obtained by the existing trial fields. The proposed trial fields also agree favorably with the real inhomogeneous index profiles