Description of arbitrary shaped beams in elliptical cylinder coordinates, by using a plane wave spectrum approach

The description of arbitrary shaped beams in elliptical cylinder coordinate s is presented by using a plane wave spectrum approach. It is demonstrated and exemplified that this approach is equivalent to a formally more rigorou s approach in terms of distributions. Beam shape coefficients are evaluated by using quadratures. The behavior of these quadratures is discussed in th e case of a first-order Davis beam which does not exactly satisfy Maxwell's equations. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.