Modeling the propagation of apertured high-order Laguerre-Gaussian beams by a user-friendly version of the mode expansion method

摘要

The mode expansion method (MEM) models the propagation of an apertured beam by expressing the diffracted field as a finite series of Laguerre-Gaussian or Hermite-Gaussian modes. An optimal expansion parameter set (beam waist of the modes and its location) reduces the number of modes, which is difficult to derive, especially for high-order incident beams. We propose a user-friendly version of the MEM in which the expansion parameter set and the suitable number of modes are simply deduced from the approximation of the apertured incident beam.