Abstract
We develop a theoretical description for polarizers that goes beyond the paraxial approximation. By combining existing theories for fields with nonplanar wavefronts, we are able to derive a simple power series expansion expressing the electric field of a light beam after a polarizer as a linear function of the field and its spatial derivatives evaluated before the polarizer. The first few terms of such expansion are explicitly given, and their physical meaning is discussed.
© 2009 Optical Society of America
Full Article | PDF ArticleMore Like This
Dongmei Deng
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 23(6) 1228-1234 (2006)
Hongcheng Wang and Weilong She
Opt. Express 14(4) 1590-1595 (2006)
Riccardo Borghi and Massimo Santarsiero
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 21(10) 2029-2037 (2004)