Abstract

Standard beam-propagation methods such as the split-step fast Fourier transform, the split-operator finite difference methods, finite element methods, and the real-space technique are generally based on a second-order formula for the exponentiated sum of two non-commuting operators expressed in terms of the products of the exponents of the individual operators. In this presentation, we introduce an accurate analogous fourth-order formula. The increased and speed of the associated field propagation techniques over standard methods is verified by explicit computations on smoothly varying one-dimensional lens profiles.

© 1990 Optical Society of America