Analysis of the electromagnetic reflection and transmission through a stratified lossy medium of an elliptically polarized plane wave

Abstract

In this paper, a method to analyze the electromagnetic scattering of an elliptically polarized plane wave through a stratified lossy medium is presented. The interaction of the electromagnetic radiation with the stratified material is taken into account by means of the transfer-matrix approach: in this way, we can consider the stratified medium as an effective single interface. To do that, it was necessary to represent the complex plane-wave propagation vector with two different formulations: the phase and attenuation vectors and the complex angle. Thanks to these two formalisms, it is possible to describe the behaviors of this canonical phenomenon in an elegant way in all the cases of presence of a stratified lossy medium. A numerical code has been implemented to compute the field over the whole space. Finally, to validate the presented model, comparisons with the results presented in the literature have been provided.