Excitation and cancellation of higher-order beam modes at isotropic interfaces

Abstract

The phenomenon of excitation and cancellation of higher-order elegant Hermite-Gaussian and Laguerre-Gaussian three-dimensional beams, induced at a dielectric isotropic interface by cross-polarization coupling, is analysed. The cross-polarization effect depends quantitatively on interrelations between beam field spatial distribution and beam polarization. These relations are derived for two basic cases of linear and circular polarization and confirmed by numerical simulations.