Diffraction-induced divergence of propagating Zernike mode aberrations

Abstract

In this paper, we study how a propagating laser beam carrying Zernike mode aberrations in its phase profile undergoes divergence due to diffraction. We first numerically simulate the propagation of Zernike modes through different distances using the Fresnel diffraction integral. We observe that a light beam carrying different Zernike modes results in irradiance patterns of various shapes and sizes. We introduce a new parameter to quantify the divergence experienced by different modes. Based on our numerical simulation study, we then construct a functional form to quantify the divergence of different Zernike modes while propagating different distances. The results using the functional form agree very well with the numerical simulation results. The proposed functional form can be employed even for a beam carrying a combination of Zernike modes.