EIGENSOLUTIONS FOR THE REFLECTION PROBLEM OF THE INTERFACE OF 2 CHIRAL HALF-SPACES

The Silberstein wave-field decomposition of electromagnetic fields is applied to the problem of wave propagation in a chiral medium. The problem of a planar interface between two chiral media is considered, and eigensolutions for the reflection and transmission problems are given. Numerical results are calculated for the eigenpolarizations and reflection coefficients, with different incident field polarizations, for the problem of an interface between isotropic and chiral media. Also, the limit cases for reflection from a half-space with only a small amount of chirality are studied, and it is shown that the chirality gives a second-order effect on the copolarized reflection coefficient and a first-order effect on cross polarization. © 1990 Optical Society of America.