Beams

As mentioned in the Rays section, a beam within the context of this package serves as a data structure for storing collections of rays, forming the backbone of the simulation framework. Beams are intended to be designed as AbstractTrees to allow for ray bifurcations, e.g. in the case of optical elements such as beamsplitters. The solve_system! function relies on this data structure to perform ray tracing computations within optical systems.

To ensure compatibility and extensibility, beam types must adhere to the BeamletOptics.AbstractBeam interface. Refer to its documentation for more information. Browse the catalog below, or refer to the table of contents for detailed documentation of the provided beam types and sources.

Beam catalog

Beams, beamlets and beam groups are traced through a bi-convex lens onto a detector near its focus.

Ray

Monochromatic geometrical ray with position and direction.

Rays

PolarizedRay

Ray that carries a complex electric field vector.

Rays

Beam

Tree of rays that stores a light path, including split beams.

Beams

GaussianBeamlet

Stigmatic Gaussian beam traced via chief, waist and divergence rays.

Beamlets

AstigmaticGaussianBeamlet

Polarized Gaussian beam with independent waists in two axes.

Beamlets

CollimatedSource

Parallel beams on concentric rings, i.e. a plane wavefront.

Beam groups

UniformDiscSource

Collimated source with equal-area Fibonacci sampling.

Beam groups

PointSource

Cone of beams from a single point, i.e. a spherical wavefront.

Beam groups

UniformPointSource

Point source with an equal solid angle per ray.

Beam groups

AstigmaticBeamGroup

Container for a coherent group of astigmatic Gaussian beamlets.

Beam groups

CollimatedGaussianBeamletSource

Square grid of beamlets forming a flat-top plane wave.

Beam groups

GaussianBeamletDecomposition

Large Gaussian beam decomposed into a grid of beamlets.

Beam groups

SphericalGaussianBeamletSource

Spherical wave decomposed into a cone of beamlets.

Beam groups

EllipticalGaussianBeamletSource

Beamlets on an elliptical cap, e.g. for laser diodes.

Beam groups

WavefrontBeamletDecomposition

Measured or custom complex field decomposed into beamlets.

Beam groups

Beam overview

• Basic beam
• Gaussian beamlet
  • Complex ray tracing
  • Stigmatic beamlets
• Astigmatic polarized beamlets
  • Formalism
  • Astigmatic beamlets
  • The Curvature Matrix Q
  • Physical Beam Cross Section
• Beam groups
  • Collimated beam source
  • Point beam source
  • Astigmatic Beam Groups

Moving beams

Rays, beams and beam groups can be moved with the same kinematic API as optical elements, see Moving sources in the Kinematics section.

Listing available beams

When using this package in the REPL, a tree view of all implemented BeamletOptics.AbstractBeams and BeamletOptics.AbstractBeamGroups can be generated via the BeamletOptics.list_subtypes helper function. Note that this function is not able to determine all available constructors.

julia> BeamletOptics.list_subtypes(BeamletOptics.AbstractBeam);
└── BeamletOptics.AbstractBeam
    ├── AstigmaticGaussianBeamlet{T} where T<:Real
    ├── Beam{T, R} where {T<:Real, R<:BeamletOptics.AbstractRay{T}}
    └── GaussianBeamlet{T} where T<:Real

At least 3 types have been found.

julia> BeamletOptics.list_subtypes(BeamletOptics.AbstractBeamGroup);
└── BeamletOptics.AbstractBeamGroup
    ├── AstigmaticBeamGroup{T, R} where {T<:Real, R<:BeamletOptics.AbstractRay{T}}
    ├── CollimatedSource{T, R} where {T<:Real, R<:BeamletOptics.AbstractRay{T}}
    └── PointSource{T, R} where {T<:Real, R<:BeamletOptics.AbstractRay{T}}

At least 3 types have been found.