Laser diode to single-mode fiber ball lens coupling efficiency: full-wave calculation and measurements.

We show that the coupling efficiency from a laser diode (LD) to an optical fiber through a ball lens can be calculated accurately using the exact solution to Maxwell's equations for the scattering of a beam from a dielectric sphere. Our calculated results agree closely with coupling measurements from an asymmetric LD for two different ball lenses.

Ball lens reflections by direct solution of Maxwell's equations.

We calculate ball lens reflections, using the exact solution of Maxwell's equations for the scattering of a beam from a dielectric sphere. Our results are consistent to within 1 dB with measurements of backreflection to a single-mode fiber. We also calculate backreflection to an astigmatic spot laser diode.

Accurate description of ultrawide-angle beam propagation in homogeneous media by Lanczos orthogonalization.

We demonstrate accurate modeling of ultrawide-angle beam propagation in homogeneous media by Lanczos orthogonalization for acceptable longitudinal step sizes. Accuracy is determined by comparison with solutions to the Helmholtz equation obtained by a band-limited Fourier series method.

Accurate solution of the Helmholtz equation by Lanczos orthogonalization for media with loss or gain.

The numerical scheme for solving the Helmholtz equation, based on the Lanczos orthogonalization scheme, is generalized so that it can be applied to media with space-dependent absorption or gain profiles.

Accurate numerical solution of the Helmholtz equation by iterative Lanczos reduction.

The Lanczos recursion algorithm is used to determine forward-propagating solutions for both the paraxial and Helmholtz wave equations for longitudinally invariant refractive indices. By eigenvalue analysis it is demonstrated that the method gives extremely accurate solutions to both equations.