title: Computation of tightly-focused laser beams in the FDTD method.
abstract: We demonstrate how a tightly-focused coherent TEMmn laser beam can be computed in the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. The electromagnetic field around the focus is decomposed into a plane-wave spectrum, and approximated by a finite number of plane waves injected into the FDTD grid using the total-field/scattered-field (TF/SF) method. We provide an error analysis, and guidelines for the discrete approximation. We analyze the scattering of the beam from layered spaces and individual scatterers. The described method should be useful for the simulation of confocal microscopy and optical data storage. An implementation of the method can be found in our free and open source FDTD software ("Angora").
authors: Biomedical Engineering Department, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA. capoglu@ieee.org
authors: Ilker R
authors: IR
authors: Capoğlu
authors: Allen
authors: A
authors: Taflove
authors: Vadim
authors: V
authors: Backman
references: Opt Express. 2008 Nov 10;16(23):19208-20
references: 19582013
references: Opt Express. 2013 Jan 14;21(1):87-101
references: 23388899