How to simulate laser beam ?

Hi,

I would like to simulate laser beam and study its interaction with a medium/geometry given by me. I am not interested in the semiconductor part of laser, just its interaction like reflection/refraction/diffraction/scattering.

Any ideas ?

Look into one of the following methods:

(1) beam propagation method
(2) rigorous coupled wave analysis
(3) finite-difference frequency domain

These algorithms compute rigorous solutions to Maxwell's equations. If the scale of your system is dozens of wavelengths or more, a scalar approach will be more efficient.

I got propagation methods and looked into RCWA algortihms, also I suppose you pointed me to FDFD because laser itself is a monochromatic wave.

I am not sure RCWA can provide what I need ; define a geometry with specific permeability,permittivity and conductivity parameters (multiple layers), apply an ELF field from one side of the medium and look into refraction index changes from the outer side (which is laser contact point) ? Assuming the medium model is very precise, is this theoretically calculateable ? can one derive a symbolic solution to this problem ? Medium is dispersive, anisotropic and nonlinear.

At least the non-linear part doesn't work with usual EM solvers.