The Light Cube - Representing Light in Optical Modeling

There are numerous mathematical and physical descriptions of light that usually depend on the application or element to be used. For example, it is quite typical to assume ray model when designing conventional lens optics for photography, so-called scalar model when analyzing diffraction from e.g. double-slit aperture, and electromagnetic model when analyzing resonance-domain diffractive elements. Thus, the chosen model is very often based on the type of optical element designed or modeled. However, in system modeling a more systematic light representation is of concern in particular if one is dealing with a partially coherent light source. We address the systematic description of light fields, including partially polarized and partially coherent light fields. The description allows also strictly monochromatic fields as well as deterministic and non-deterministic pulses. We introduce a geometrical illustration of the systematic, named The Light Cube that offers a convenient way to characterize and to employ the field representation. We also discuss how the introduced systematic can be applied to reduce the computational effort in numerical modeling.