Physical Review D.
Vol. 97.
2018.
Maxwell equations describe the propagation with diffraction of waveguide modes through a thin-film waveguide lens. If the radius of the thin-film lens is large, then the thickness of the lens varies slowly in the yz plane. For this case we propose the model, which is based on the assumption of a small change in the electromagnetic field in a direction y. Under this assumption the vector diffraction problem is reduced to a number of scalar diffraction problems. The solutions demonstrate the vector nature of the electromagnetic field, which allows us to call the proposed model a quasi-vector model. © 2018 The Authors, published by EDP Sciences.