Advances in the modeling of light propagation in inhomogeneous birefringent media
Abstract
Birefringence is a key optical property exploited across diverse fields, including biological imaging, soft matter characterization, nonlinear optics, and liquid crystal photonics, enabling applications from structural coloration and phase matching in second-harmonic generation to engineered photonic Hamiltonians, bound states in the continuum, and edge-mode lasing. As many modern applications involve complex, non-uniform anisotropic structures, accurate modeling of light behavior in these systems becomes essential. This review provides an overview of numerical methods for modeling linear light propagation in such spatially inhomogeneous birefringent media---systems that can present significant computational challenges. We focus on approximately lossless and linear optical phenomena, which for typical soft matter systems corresponds to visible light at power ≪ 1 mW. We use a unified mathematical framework covering both historical and contemporary numerical approaches, including the Jones and Berreman methods for layered systems, ray-tracing and beam propagation methods for systems with moderate transverse variations of the optical axis, and full-wave anisotropic Finite Difference Time Domain techniques for micron-scale photonics systems. We compare the advantages and limitations of each method, and provide practical benchmarks using representative model systems. Intended as an accessible entry point for researchers, this work also includes recommendations for open-source software implementations to facilitate adoption and further development in this evolving field.
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BibTeX
@misc{poy2026advances,
title = {{Advances in the modeling of light propagation in inhomogeneous birefringent media}},
author = {Guilhem Poy and Slobodan Žumer},
howpublished = {HAL},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05844970v1},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Advances in the modeling of light propagation in inhomogeneous birefringent media
AU - Guilhem Poy
AU - Slobodan Žumer
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/21
PB - HAL
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05844970v1
AB - Birefringence is a key optical property exploited across diverse fields, including biological imaging, soft matter characterization, nonlinear optics, and liquid crystal photonics, enabling applications from structural coloration and phase matching in second-harmonic generation to engineered photonic Hamiltonians, bound states in the continuum, and edge-mode lasing. As many modern applications involve complex, non-uniform anisotropic structures, accurate modeling of light behavior in these systems becomes essential. This review provides an overview of numerical methods for modeling linear light propagation in such spatially inhomogeneous birefringent media---systems that can present significant computational challenges. We focus on approximately lossless and linear optical phenomena, which for typical soft matter systems corresponds to visible light at power ≪ 1 mW. We use a unified mathematical framework covering both historical and contemporary numerical approaches, including the Jones and Berreman methods for layered systems, ray-tracing and beam propagation methods for systems with moderate transverse variations of the optical axis, and full-wave anisotropic Finite Difference Time Domain techniques for micron-scale photonics systems. We compare the advantages and limitations of each method, and provide practical benchmarks using representative model systems. Intended as an accessible entry point for researchers, this work also includes recommendations for open-source software implementations to facilitate adoption and further development in this evolving field.
ER -