A comparative study of elegant and standard Hermite–Gaussian beams

Abstract

The closed-form expressions for the propagation of elegant Hermite–Gaussian (H–G) beams passing though a first-order optical ABCD system are derived by means of which a comparative study of the propagation properties of standard and elegant H–G beams is performed. Furthermore, the beam propagation factor and/or power in the bucket (PIB) are chosen as the criteria for characterizing beam quality, and the beam quality of standard and elegant H–G beams is compared.