Analytic theory of coupled waveguide transformation under randomly perturbations

Abstract: Coupled waveguides are convenient at implementing useful optical transformations. In this letter, we investigate the uncertainty of transformation by two coupled waveguides that stems from the perturbations of waveguide's mode indices~--- the effect that may be imposed by a non-ideal fabrication process, in particular, those of femtosecond direct laser writing. In our analysis, the perturbations are assumed to be samples of a stationary random process, characterized by an intensity and a correlation scale parameter. We have derived analytical equations that link these parameters with relevant statistical characteristics and applied them to analyse how the uncertainty evolves with field propagation length. We have shown that the interaction length over which the expectation value of power becomes evenly distributed among the waveguides is crucially dependent on the random process correlation scale and perturbation intensity.