Fast and accurate propagation of coherent light

Abstract

We describe a fast algorithm to propagate, for any user-specified accuracy, a time-harmonic electromagnetic field between two parallel planes separated by a linear, isotropic and homogeneous medium. The analytical formulation of this problem (ca 1897) requires the evaluation of the so-called Rayleigh–Sommerfeld integral. If the distance between the planes is small, this integral can be accurately evaluated in the Fourier domain; if the distance is very large, it can be accurately approximated by asymptotic methods. In the large intermediate region of practical interest, where the oscillatory Rayleigh–Sommerfeld kernel must be applied directly, current numerical methods can be highly inaccurate without indicating this fact to the user. In our approach, for any user-specified accuracy ϵ >0, we approximate the kernel by a short sum of Gaussians with complex-valued exponents, and then efficiently apply the result to the input data using the unequally spaced fast Fourier transform. The resulting algorithm has computational complexity , where we evaluate the solution on an N × N grid of output points given an M × M grid of input samples. Our algorithm maintains its accuracy throughout the computational domain.