Take transverse length units in which the wave phase modulation has wavenumber one. Set . A Taylor expansion of the free parabolic propagator gives
For a general real wave phase ,
Multiplying the envelope expansion by its complex conjugate and collecting powers of gives the phase-to-intensity conversion near a deterministic phase screen,
For , , and , hence
The first-order brightening occurs where the wave phase curvature is negative. Both correction terms average to zero over a transverse period, in agreement with power conservation. If a dimensional modulation is used instead, the two terms are and .
Figure 1.
Phase curvature converts a unit-amplitude sinusoidal phase screen into intensity variations; exact paraxial propagation is compared with its quadratic near-screen approximation
. Details.