Tapered single-mode fibres and devices. I. Adiabaticity criteria

Two complementary delineation criteria are presented which provide guidelines to the design of relatively short, low-loss tapered fibres and devices. They are used to explain anomalous loss effects in depressed-cladding and W-fibres, as well as the difficulty in fabricating low-loss devices by tapering such fibres. Practical application of the criteria to couplers, beam expanders and abrupt taper filters is summarised. The accompanying paper provides both experimental and theoretical justification for the delineation criteria