Reflection dyadic for the soft and hard surface with application to the depolarising corner reflector

Abstract

Applying scalarisation of the plane-wave fields, an expression for the reflection dyadic corresponding to the soft and hard surface (SHS) is derived, applicable for both the electric and magnetic fields of the plane wave. Eigenvectors and eigenvalues of the reflection dyadic allow one to express the dyadic in a particularly simple form in terms of circularly polarised unit vectors. The expression can be effectively applied to problems involving consecutive reflections from many SHS surfaces. As an example, reflection of a plane wave from a corner reflector involving three SHS faces is studied. The total reflection dyadic has a simple form showing that the handedness of a circularly polarised wave is not changed in the reflection. The reflection phase angle of rays after different reflection paths is given a simple formula readily applicable for a physical optics analysis of the totally corrugated corner reflector.