Composite waveguide on a photorefractive crystal

A new waveguiding structure (composite waveguide) has been proposed, which has the form of a linear dielectric layer on the surface of a photorefractive crystal and supports spatially confined modes propagating along its surface. We demonstrate that the modal properties of the composite waveguide are determined by those of a Bragg waveguide and the properties of nonlinear surface waves and the leaky modes of the thin-film waveguide. Various schemes of mode excitation in the composite waveguide are examined.