Abstract

The discreteness of the zeroth-order class of the spectrum of classes of point emitters is shown as a necessary and sufficient physical condition for describing diffraction from the aperture plane to the far field. Although it does not contradict the continuity requirement of the cross-spectral density, it points out that this mathematical requirement is physically redundant. This feature gives new insight on the understanding of diffraction as well as novel tools for design and development of efficient non-paraxial propagation algorithms. It also leads to new criteria for characterizing physical point sources of light.

© 2017 Optical Society of America

Spectrum of classes of point emitters: new tool for nonparaxial optical field modeling

Román Castañeda and Hernán Muñoz
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 33(8) 1421-1429 (2016)

Spectrum of classes of point emitters of electromagnetic wave fields

Román Castañeda
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 33(9) 1769-1776 (2016)

Interaction description of light propagation

Román Castañeda
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 34(6) 1035-1044 (2017)

Discreteness of the set of radiant point sources: a physical feature of the second-order wave-fronts

Román Castañeda, David Vargas, and Esteban Franco
Opt. Express 21(11) 12964-12975 (2013)

Three-dimensional nonparaxial characterization of physical point sources

Román Castañeda and Jaime Moreno
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 36(10) 1657-1662 (2019)