Fast three-dimensional generalized rectangular wide-angle beam propagation method using complex Jacobi iteration

A fast and efficient three-dimensional generalized rectangular wide-angle beam propagation method (GR-WABPM) based on a recently proposed modified Padé (1,1) approximant is presented. In our method, at each propagation step, the beam propagation equation is recast in terms of a Helmholtz equation with a source term, which is solved quickly and accurately by a recently introduced complex Jacobi iterative (CJI) method. The efficiency of the GR-WA-BPM for the analysis of tilted optical waveguides is demonstrated in comparison with the standard wide-angle beam propagation method based on Hadley’s scheme. In addition, since the utility of the CJI method depends mostly on its execution speed in comparison with the traditional direct matrix inversion, several performance comparisons are also presented. © 2009 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: 000.4430, 220.2560, 350.5500.