Scattering of electromagnetic waves by thin dielectric planar structures

The problem of scattering of electromagnetic waves by a thin dielectric planar structure is considered. If the squared index of refraction of the scatterer scales as 1/h, where h is the thickness of the structure, we show that an approximate solution to the scattering problem can be obtained by a perturbation method. The approximate solution consists of two terms, the zeroth order term and the first order corrector, both of which can be found by solving 2-D integral equations for 3-D problems. We provide error estimates for the approximation. Therefore, the method described in this work can be viewed as a computational approach which can potentially greatly simplify scattering calculations for problems involving thin scatterers.