METHODS FOR ANALYSIS OF OPTICAL FIBERS WITH ARBITRARY REFRACTIVE INDEX PROFILE P. Sircar* and N. Jethi Department of Electrical Engineering Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur Kanpur 208016, India *Corresponding author; Email address: sircar@iitk.ac.in Abstract Two fast and accurate algorithms based on the orthogonal polynomial approximation and the Chebyshev polynomial interpolation, for obtaining the actual field solutions of a fiber with arbitrary refractive index profile are presented. These solutions in turn can be used to evaluate the dispersion parameters the fiber. The numerical methods are compared in terms of their performances, viz., complexity and accuracy. The method based on the orthogonal polynomial approximation is simple in principle and easy to implement on a computer, and it has several advantages compared to the method based on the Chebyshev polynomial interpolation. Keywords: Numerical Analysis, Optical Fiber, Dispersion Parameters, Wave Equation, Orthogonal Polynomial Approximation