Determination of nongeometric effects: equivalence between Artmann's and Tamir's generalized methods.

This work shows that all first- and second-order nongeometric effects on propagation, total or partial reflection, and transmission can be understood and evaluated considering the superposition of two plane waves. It also shows that this description yields results that are qualitatively and quantitatively compatible with those obtained by Fourier analysis of beams with Gaussian intensity distribution in any type of interface. In order to show this equivalence, we start by describing the first- and second-order nongeometric effects, and we calculate them analytically by superposing two plane waves.