2017/07/03 by Nikolai Christian Passler, Nikolai Christian Paßler, Alexander Paarmann · 3 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Anisotropy #Computational physics #Condensed matter physics #Dielectric #Electric field #Isotropy #Optics #Phonon #Photonic Crystals and Applications #Photonic and Optical Devices #Physics #Polariton #Quantum mechanics #Surface phonon #Thermal Radiation and Cooling Technologies #physics.optics
paper · pdf · doi:10.1364/josab.34.002128
arxiv created 2017/07/03 · openalex created_date 2017/07/14 · openalex publication_date 2017/09/14 · arxiv updated 2017/10/11 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present a generalized 4×4 matrix formalism for the description of light propagation in birefringent stratified media. In contrast to previous work, our algorithm is capable of treating arbitrarily anisotropic or isotropic, absorbing or non-absorbing materials and is free of discontinuous solutions. We calculate the reflection and transmission coefficients and derive equations for the electric field distribution for any number of layers. The algorithm is easily comprehensible and can be straightforwardly implemented in a computer program. To demonstrate the capabilities of the approach, we calculate the reflectivities, electric field distributions, and dispersion curves for surface phonon polaritons excited in the Otto geometry for selected model systems, where we observe several distinct phenomena ranging from critical coupling to mode splitting, and surface phonon polaritons in hyperbolic media.