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Evanescent Field Based Photoacoustics: Optical Property Evaluation at Surfaces
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Published on: July 26, 2016

Wigner functions for evanescent waves.

Jonathan C Petruccelli1, Lei Tian, Se Baek Oh

  • 1Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. jpetrucc@mit.edu

Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, Image Science, and Vision
|December 4, 2012
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

We introduce novel phase space distributions to model optical fields with evanescent components. These distributions effectively capture the behavior of evanescent waves, crucial for understanding light interactions at interfaces.

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Area of Science:

  • Optics
  • Quantum Optics
  • Mathematical Physics

Background:

  • Evanescent waves are critical in near-field optics and surface phenomena.
  • Describing fields with evanescent components requires advanced mathematical frameworks.
  • The Wigner distribution function is a standard tool for phase space representation of quantum states.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To develop a generalized phase space distribution for optical fields including evanescent components.
  • To analyze the propagation dynamics of these distributions in optical systems.
  • To provide a theoretical tool for characterizing partially coherent fields with evanescent parts.

Main Methods:

  • Extension of the Wigner distribution function to include evanescent components.
  • Definition of an optical phase space incorporating spatial position and complex-valued angle.
  • Analysis of the propagation behavior of the proposed distributions.

Main Results:

  • The proposed distributions successfully describe fields with evanescent components emitted into a half-space.
  • Evanescent components are shown to correspond to exponential decay in the phase space distributions.
  • The behavior of these distributions under propagation is mathematically characterized.

Conclusions:

  • The extended phase space distributions offer a powerful method for analyzing fields with evanescent components.
  • This framework is applicable to various states of coherence and optical phenomena like total internal reflection.
  • The study provides new insights into the behavior of evanescent waves in optical phase space.