Abstract

In analogy with Huygen’s wavelets a new method based on Gaussian beamlets is used to develop a conventional diffraction integral formalism for paraxial optical systems representable by complex 2 × 2 ABCD Gaussian beam matrices. This method, along with a new phase parameter transformation, is then used to produce a new diffraction integral for studying the propagation of light beams with arbitrary spatial profiles through much more general misaligned complex optical systems representable by 3 × 3 ABCDGH beam matrices.

© 1996 Optical Society of America

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