Construction of local boundary conditions for an eigenvalue problem using micro-local analysis: application to optical waveguide problems

We present a general procedure based on the pseudo-differential calculus for deriving artificial boundary conditions for an eigenvalue problem that characterizes the propagation of guided modes in optical waveguides. This new approach allows the construction of local conditions that (a) are independent of the frequency regime, (b) preserve the sparsity pattern of the finite element discretization, and (c) are applicable to arbitrarily shaped convex artificial boundaries. The last feature has the potential for reducing the size of the computational domain. Numerical results are presented to highlight the potential of conditions of order 1/2 and 1, for improving significantly the computational efficiency of finite element methods for the solution of optical waveguide problems.