Day 24
I think the program I am working on is calculating the complex beam parameter (q) correctly now that I changed it to use the input beam waist location in the calculation of the radius of curvature rather than calculating that position based on the waist size and current size; I'm not sure why the second way doesn't work though, it seems like it should give the same answer either way.
The program calculates the q value and then uses q in a 1x2 matrix which is multiplied by the matrices for the components of the optical system (one matrix for each lens and one for each distance of free space between, before, or after lenses) which gives a new complex parameter. The same process can also be done to the two values (height and angle) that are used to calculate the radius of curvature. By knowing the radius of curvature before and after the transformation the beam radius and therefore intensity (because power is conserved) can be calculated at the second point as well because radius and radius of curvature are the only two variables used to calculate q (several constants are used as well). MATLAB is used for this process because instead of just calculating the new beam characteristics at the end point, it can run through a loop and find the beam characteristics at every point between two desired distances and display them as a data table or a graph.
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