ON REFLECTION AND REFRACTION OF PLANE ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES AT A CONDUCTING MATTER SURFACE

Abstract

A general problem of monochrome plane electromagnetic wave reflection and refraction at the interface between the conducting medium and the dielectric is formulated and solved by symbolic computation for given incident wave polarization. The conductivity account via the Ohm law directly in the Maxwell equation leads to a complex wavenumber and hence complex amplitudes of the reflected and refracted waves. Atomic absorption is taken into account via the imaginary part of permittivity. The general formula for the time-averaged Pointing vector in the conducting media as a function of the medium parameters and the incident angle is derived and used for the refraction angle definition. The result is compared with textbooks and recent publications. The dependence of intensity as a function of the angle to the interface is determined also via the Pointing vector as a function of the incident wave and medium parameters.