Bloch-mode extraction from near-field data in periodic waveguides

We demonstrate that the spatial profiles of both propagating and evanescent Bloch modes in a periodic structure can be extracted from a single measurement of an electric field at the specified optical wavelength. We develop a systematic extraction procedure by extending the concepts of high-resolution spectral methods previously developed for temporal data series to take into account the symmetry properties of Bloch modes simultaneously at all spatial locations. We illustrate the application of our method to a photonic crystal waveguide interface and confirm its robustness in the presence of noise. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America