Classical waveguides are designed around refractive index contrast and geometric confinement. In the MID/QC framework, waveguides are reinterpreted as coherence‑aligned channels within the quantized substrate. This paper develops the substrate‑first model in which optical routing emerges from tension‑guided coherence propagation, alignment fields, and substrate geometry rather than refractive trapping. The result is a unified architecture explaining fiber behavior, photonic routing, on‑chip optical interconnects, bend loss, mode stability, and coherence preservation as substrate‑level dynamics. This work extends the photonic foundation established in Series 7 and anchors the routing‑focused branch of coherence‑native optical systems.
Chadwick Rasque (Mon,) studied this question.