Modes of a twisted optical cavity

Journal Article · Thu Mar 15 00:00:00 EDT 2007 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVA.75.033819· OSTI ID:20982410

Habraken, Steven J. M.; Nienhuis, Gerard ^[1]

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1. Huygens Laboratorium, Universiteit Leiden, Postbus 9504, 2300 RA Leiden (Netherlands)

An astigmatic optical resonator consists of two astigmatic mirrors facing each other. The resonator is twisted when the symmetry axes of the mirrors are nonparallel. We present an algebraic method to obtain the complete set of the paraxial eigenmodes of such a resonator. Basic ingredients are the complex eigenvectors of the four-dimensional transfer matrix that describes the transformation of a ray of light over a roundtrip of the resonator. The relation between the fundamental mode and the higher-order modes is expressed in terms of raising operators in the spirit of the ladder operators of the quantum harmonic oscillator.

• OSTI ID: 20982410
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Vol. 75, Issue 3; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.75.033819; (c) 2007 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1050-2947
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ANALYTICAL SOLUTION
EIGENFUNCTIONS
EIGENVECTORS
FOUR-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
HARMONIC OSCILLATORS
MATRICES
MIRRORS
OPTICS
RESONATORS
SYMMETRY
TRANSFER FUNCTIONS
TRANSFORMATIONS