Propagation of a general-type beam through apertured aligned and misaligned ABCD optical systems

By expanding the hard-aperture function into a finite sum of complex Gaussian functions, analytical formulae for the electric field of a general-type beam propagating through apertured aligned and misaligned ABCD optical systems are derived using the generalized Collins formulae, which provide a convenient way of studying the propagation of a variety of laser beams, such as Gaussian, cos-Gaussian, cosh-Gaussian, sine-Gaussian, sinh-Gaussian, flat-topped, Hermite-cosh-Gaussian, Hermite-sine-Gaussian, higher-order annular Gaussian, Hermite-sinh-Gaussian and Hermite-cos-Gaussian beams, through such optical systems. As numerical examples, the propagation properties of a cos-Gaussian beam through an apertured aligned or misaligned thin lens are studied.