title: Waveletlike basis function approach to the propagation of paraxial beams
abstract: A semianalytical method is described for calculating the diffraction integral for paraxial propagation through an optical system. The field at the input plane is represented by a linear superposition of nearly Gaussian basis functions that keep a simple analytical form under ABCD propagation. The coefficients of the superposition are obtained by a numerical fit. The flexibility of the basis functions makes the method well suited to dealing with sharp local variations of the input field.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Durham, United Kingdom. R.M.Potvliege@durham.ac.uk
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Potvliege