Modeling the tight focusing of beams in absorbing media with Monte Carlo simulations

Arnd R. Brandes; Ahmed Elmaklizi; H. Günhan Akarcay; Alwin Kienle

doi:10.1117/1.JBO.19.11.115003

13 November 2014 Modeling the tight focusing of beams in absorbing media with Monte Carlo simulations

Arnd R. Brandes, Ahmed Elmaklizi, H. Günhan Akarcay, Alwin Kienle

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Funded by: Evangelisches Studienwerk e.V. Villigst, the Baden-Württemberg Stiftung and the Swiss National Science Foundation

Journal of Biomedical Optics, Vol. 19, Issue 11, 115003 (November 2014). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JBO.19.11.115003

Abstract

A severe drawback to the scalar Monte Carlo (MC) method is the difficulty of introducing diffraction when simulating light propagation. This hinders, for instance, the accurate modeling of beams focused through microscope objectives, where the diffraction patterns in the focal plane are of great importance in various applications. Here, we propose to overcome this issue by means of a direct extinction method. In the MC simulations, the photon paths’ initial positions are sampled from probability distributions which are calculated with a modified angular spectrum of the plane waves technique. We restricted our study to the two-dimensional case, and investigated the feasibility of our approach for absorbing yet nonscattering materials. We simulated the focusing of collimated beams with uniform profiles through microscope objectives. Our results were compared with those yielded by independent simulations using the finite-difference time-domain method. Very good agreement was achieved between the results of both methods, not only for the power distributions around the focal region including diffraction patterns, but also for the distribution of the energy flow (Poynting vector).

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Arnd R. Brandes, Ahmed Elmaklizi, H. Günhan Akarcay, and Alwin Kienle "Modeling the tight focusing of beams in absorbing media with Monte Carlo simulations," Journal of Biomedical Optics 19(11), 115003 (13 November 2014). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JBO.19.11.115003

Published: 13 November 2014

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