Abstract
The standard scalar paraxial parabolic (Fock–Leontovich) propagation equation is generalized to include all-order nonparaxial corrections in the significant case of a tensorial refractive-index perturbation on a homogeneous isotropic background. In the resultant equation, each higher-order nonparaxial term (associated with diffraction in homogeneous space and scaling as the ratio between beam waist and diffraction length) possesses a counterpart (associated with the refractive-index perturbation) that allows one to preserve the vectorial nature of the problem The tensorial character of the refractive-index variation is shown to play a particularly relevant role whenever the tensor elements and (z is the propagation direction) are not negligible. For this case, an application to elasto-optically induced optical activity and to nonlinear propagation in the presence of the optical Kerr effect is presented.
© 2000 Optical Society of America
Full Article | PDF ArticleMore Like This
B. Crosignani, P. Di Porto, and A. Yariv
Opt. Lett. 22(11) 778-780 (1997)
Kailiang Duan and Baida Lü
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 21(9) 1613-1620 (2004)
Alessandro Ciattoni, Paolo Di Porto, Bruno Crosignani, and Amnon Yariv
Opt. Lett. 26(1) 28-29 (2001)