A Heuristic Approach to Fiber Optics

By employing simple heuristic arguments based on the ray model of light it is possible to gain significant physical insight into light propagation mechanisms of optical fibers. Specifically, the optical fiber can be treated as an idealized waveguide in order to obtain qualitatively correct dependence of the mode density and power transmission characteristics on the V parameter of the optical fiber. In addition, the ray trajectories for optical fiber modes can be compared through a simple correspondence which links the del operator to the ray propagation vector.