The propagation of harmonic fields through arbitrary optical components is the fundamental task in optical modeling. Unified optical modeling by field tracing uses different techniques for different components in order to ensure the best compromise between simulation effort and accuracy. This approach can be extended to non-harmonic fields. With a set of harmonic fields modeling partial coherence of stationary sources is enabled. The same approach can be applied to model the propagation of fully coherent ultrashort pulses through optical systems, which may include for instance lenses, gratings and micro-optical components. For that we can rely on field tracing with its numerous sophisticated propagation techniques for a single harmonic field. Methods to reduce frequency domain sampling are presented. They allow a convenient pulse modeling in practice. Several examples are presented using ultrashort pulse modeling with VirtualLab™.

Date Published: 25 February 2010
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 7589, Frontiers in Ultrafast Optics: Biomedical, Scientific, and Industrial Applications X, 75890O (25 February 2010); doi: 10.1117/12.843265

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7589:
Frontiers in Ultrafast Optics: Biomedical, Scientific, and Industrial Applications X
Alexander Heisterkamp; Joseph Neev; Stefan Nolte; Rick P. Trebino, Editor(s)