Speaker
Apply to be<br> consider for a student <br> award (Yes / No)?
No
Would you like to <br> submit a short paper <br> for the Conference <br> Proceedings (Yes / No)?
No
Abstract content <br> (Max 300 words)
A free-propagating laser beam can be completely defined if its beam size, divergence and space-angular moment at a plane are known. I present a model which is based on the idea that under these circumstances, once these parameters are known in one plane, say z =0, we can calculate the same parameters at a subsequent plane, z > 0 if the space between the two planes is described an ABCD matrix. I show that we can calculate the beam quality factor (M2), a parameter which does not depend on the ABCD elements. The resulting expression for M2 is based on the so-called, curvature removal method. I also show that, during translation, the so-called local parameters (which depend on z), i.e., the divergence, curvature and the Guoy shift, and what I am going to call the global parameters (which are independent of z), i.e., the waist position, waist size, Rayleigh range and far-field divergence, can all be calculated from the input parameters if the ABCD matrix elements are known. I then derive a few well-known expressions to confirm the model’s validity.
