Propagation of Plane Waves in Biaxially Anisotropic Layered Media*

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the general theory of wave propagation in layered biaxially anisotropic media. Details are presented for the calculation of the induced waves that are due to an arbitrarily polarized and obliquely incident wave impinging on a three-layer structure. The total numbers of partial waves with their respective phase velocities, direction of phase propagation, and polarization are determined by the use of the Fresnel equation and Snell’s law applied to each layer. The vector amplitudes of the partial waves are found by proper matching of the field components at the interfaces. The expressions thus found are shown to reduce to known results for a uniaxial three-layer structure. An extension of this theory to an arbitrary number of layers is also presented.