Description of a radially polarized Laguerre–Gauss beam beyond the paraxial approximation

Abstract

Fifth-order corrected expressions for the fields of a radially polarized Laguerre–Gauss $\left(\mathrm{R}\text{-}{\mathrm{TEM}}_{n1}\right)$ laser beams are derived based on perturbative Lax series expansion. When the order of Laguerre polynomial is equal to zero, the corresponding beam reduces to the lowest-order radially polarized beam $\left(\mathrm{R}\text{-}{\mathrm{TEM}}_{01}\right)$. Simulation results show that the accuracy of the fifth-order correction for $\mathrm{R}\text{-}{\mathrm{TEM}}_{n1}$ depends not only on the diffraction angle of the beam as $\mathrm{R}\text{-}{\mathrm{TEM}}_{01}$ does, but also on the order of the beam.

© 2007 Optical Society of America