Unit-IV and unit V

Polarisation of plane wave:

The polarisation of a plane wave can be defined as the orientation of the electric field vector as a
function of time at a fixed point in space. For an electromagnetic wave, the specification of the
orientation of the electric field is sufficent as the magnetic field components are related to electric
field vector by the Maxwell's equations.

Let us consider a plane wave travelling in the +z direction. The wave has both E x and Ey
components.

..........................................(6.45)

The corresponding magnetic fields are given by,

Depending upon the values of Eox and Eoy we can have several possibilities:

1. If Eoy = 0, then the wave is linearly polarised in the x-direction.

2. If Eoy = 0, then the wave is linearly polarised in the y-direction.

3. If Eox and Eoy are both real (or complex with equal phase), once again we get a linearly polarised

wave with the axis of polarisation inclined at an angle , with respect to the x-axis. This is
shown in fig 6.4.
 Fig 6.4 : Linear Polarisation

4. If Eox and Eoy are complex with different phase angles, will not point to a single spatial
direction. This is explained as follows:

Let

Then,

and ....................................(6.46)

To keep the things simple, let us consider a =0 and . Further, let us study the nature of the electric field on
the z =0 plain.

From equation (6.46) we find that,

 .....................................(6.47)

and the electric field vector at z = 0 can be written as

.............................................(6.48)

Assuming , the plot of for various values of t is hown in figure 6.5

Figure 6.5 : Plot of E(o,t)

From equation (6.47) and figure (6.5) we observe that the tip of the arrow representing electric field vector traces
qn ellipse and the field is said to be elliptically polarised.
 Figure 6.6: Polarisation ellipse

The polarisation ellipse shown in figure 6.6 is defined by its axial ratio(M/N, the ratio of semimajor to semiminor
axis), tilt angle (orientation with respect to xaxis) and sense of rotation(i.e., CW or CCW).

Linear polarisation can be treated as a special case of elliptical polarisation, for which the axial ratio is infinite.

In our example, if , from equation (6.47), the tip of the arrow representing electric field vector traces
out a circle. Such a case is referred to as Circular Polarisation. For circular polarisation the axial ratio is unity.

Figure 6.7: Circular Polarisation (RHCP

Further, the circular polarisation is aside to be right handed circular polarisation (RHCP) if the electric field vector
rotates in the direction of the fingers of the right hand when the thumb points in the direction of propagation-(same
and CCW). If the electric field vector rotates in the opposite direction, the polarisation is asid to be left hand
circular polarisation (LHCP) (same as CW).

In AM radio broadcast, the radiated electromagnetic wave is linearly polarised with the field vertical to the
ground( vertical polarisation) where as TV signals are horizontally polarised waves. FM broadcast is usually
carried out using circularly polarised waves.

In radio communication, different information signals can be transmitted at the same frequency at orthogonal
polarisation ( one signal as vertically polarised other horizontally polarised or one as RHCP while the other as
LHCP) to increase capacity. Otherwise, same signal can be transmitted at orthogonal polarisation to obtain
diversity gain to improve reliability of transmission.

Behaviour of Plane waves at the inteface of two media:

We have considered the propagation of uniform plane waves in an unbounded homogeneous medium. In practice,
the wave will propagate in bounded regions where several values of will be present. When plane wave
travelling in one medium meets a different medium, it is partly reflected and partly transmitted. In this section, we
consider wave reflection and transmission at planar boundary between two media.

Fig 6.8 : Normal Incidence at a plane boundary

Case1: Let z = 0 plane represent the interface between two media. Medium 1 is characterised by and

medium 2 is characterized by .

Let the subscripts 'i' denotes incident, 'r' denotes reflected and 't' denotes transmitted field components
respectively.

The incident wave is assumed to be a plane wave polarized along x and travelling in medium 1 along direction.
From equation (6.24) we can write

..................(6.49.a)

......................(6.49.b)

where and .

Because of the presence of the second medium at z =0, the incident wave will undergo partial reflection and partial
transmission.

The reflected wave will travel along in medium 1.

The reflected field components are:

...............................................(6.50a)

.........(6.50b)

The transmitted wave will travel in medium 2 along for which the field components are

............................................(6.51a)

............................................(6.51b)

where and

In medium 1,

and

and in medium 2,

and

Applying boundary conditions at the interface z = 0, i.e., continuity of tangential field components and noting that
incident, reflected and transmitted field components are tangential at the boundary, we can write

&
From equation 6.49 to 6.51 we get,

................................................................(6.52a)

..............................................................(6.52b)

Eliminating Eto ,

or,

or,

...............(6.53)

is called the reflection coefficient.

From equation (6.52), we can write

or,

........................................(6.54)

is called the transmission coefficient.

We observe that,

........................................(6.55)
The following may be noted

(i) both and T are dimensionless and may be complex

(ii)

Let us now consider specific cases:

Case I: Normal incidence on a plane conducting boundary

The medium 1 is perfect dielectric and medium 2 is perfectly conducting .

From (6.53) and (6.54)

= -1

and T =0

Hence the wave is not transmitted to medium 2, it gets reflected entirely from the interface to the medium 1.

& .................................(6.56)

Proceeding in the same manner for the magnetic field in region 1, we can show that,

...................................................................................(6.57)

The wave in medium 1 thus becomes a standing wave due to the super position of a forward travelling wave and a
backward travelling wave. For a given ' t', both and vary sinusoidally with distance measured from z = 0.
This is shown in figure 6.9.
 Figure 6.9: Generation of standing wave

Case2: Normal incidence on a plane dielectric boundary

If the medium 2 is not a perfect conductor (i.e. ) partial reflection will result. There will be a reflected wave
in the medium 1 and a transmitted wave in the medium 2.Because of the reflected wave, standing wave is formed
in medium 1.

From equation (6.49(a)) and equation (6.53) we can write

..................(6.59)

Let us consider the scenario when both the media are dissipation less i.e. perfect dielectrics ( )

..................(6.60)

In this case both and become real numbers.

..................(6.61)

From (6.61), we can see that, in medium 1 we have a traveling wave component with amplitude TE io and a
standing wave component with amplitude 2JEio.

The location of the maximum and the minimum of the electric and magnetic field components in the medium 1from
the interface can be found as follows.

The electric field in medium 1 can be written as

..................(6.62)

If i.e. >0

The maximum value of the electric field is

 ..................(6.63)

and this occurs when

or , n = 0, 1, 2, 3.......................(6.64)

The minimum value of is

.................(6.65)

And this occurs when

or , n = 0, 1, 2, 3.............................(6.66)

For i.e. <0

The maximum value of is which occurs at the zmin locations and the minimum value of is

which occurs at zmax locations as given by the equations (6.64) and (6.66).

From our discussions so far we observe that can be written as

.................(6.67)

The quantity S is called as the standing wave ratio.

As the range of S is given by

From (6.62), we can write the expression for the magnetic field in medium 1 as
 .................(6.68)

From (6.68) we find that will be maximum at locations where is minimum and vice versa.
In medium 2, the transmitted wave propagates in the + z direction.

Oblique Incidence of EM wave at an interface

So far we have discuss the case of normal incidence where electromagnetic wave traveling in a lossless medium
impinges normally at the interface of a second medium. In this section we shall consider the case of oblique
incidence. As before, we consider two cases

i. When the second medium is a perfect conductor.

ii. When the second medium is a perfect dielectric.

A plane incidence is defined as the plane containing the vector indicating the direction of propagation of the
incident wave and normal to the interface. We study two specific cases when the incident electric field is
perpendicular to the plane of incidence (perpendicular polarization) and is parallel to the plane of incidence
(parallel polarization). For a general case, the incident wave may have arbitrary polarization but the same can be
expressed as a linear combination of these two individual cases.

Oblique Incidence at a plane conducting boundary

i. Perpendicular Polarization

The situation is depicted in figure 6.10.

Figure 6.10: Perpendicular Polarization

As the EM field inside the perfect conductor is zero, the interface reflects the incident plane wave. and
respectively represent the unit vector in the direction of propagation of the incident and reflected waves, is the
angle of incidence and is the angle of reflection.

We find that

............................(6.69)

Since the incident wave is considered to be perpendicular to the plane of incidence, which for the present case
happens to be xz plane, the electric field has only y-component.

Therefore,

The corresponding magnetic field is given by

...........................(6.70)

Similarly, we can write the reflected waves as

...................................................(6.71)

Since at the interface z=o, the tangential electric field is zero.

............................................(6.72)

Consider in equation (6.72) is satisfied if we have

..................................(6.73)
The condition is Snell's law of reflection.

..................................(6.74)

..................................(6.75)

The total electric field is given by

..................................(6.76)

Similarly, total magnetic field is given by

.............................
(6.77)

From eqns (6.76) and (6.77) we observe that

1. Along z direction i.e. normal to the boundary

y component of and x component of maintain standing wave patterns according to and
where . No average power propagates along z as y component of and x
component of are out of phase.

2. Along x i.e. parallel to the interface

y component of and z component of are in phase (both time and space) and propagate with phase
velocity

.............................(6.78)

The wave propagating along the x direction has its amplitude varying with z and hence constitutes a non uniform
plane wave. Further, only electric field is perpendicular to the direction of propagation (i.e. x), the magnetic field
has component along the direction of propagation. Such waves are called transverse electric or TE waves.

ii. Parallel Polarization:

In this case also and are given by equations (6.69). Here and have only y component.

Figure 6.11: Parallel Polarization

With reference to fig (6.11), the field components can be written as:

Incident field components:

............................(6.79)

Reflected field components:

............................(6.80)

Since the total tangential electric field component at the interface is zero.
Which leads to and as before.

Substituting these quantities in (6.79) and adding the incident and reflected electric and magnetic
field components the total electric and magnetic fields can be written as

......................
.....(6.81)

Once again, we find a standing wave pattern along z for the x and y components of and , while

a non uniform plane wave propagates along x with a phase velocity given by where

. Since, for this propagating wave, magnetic field is in transverse direction, such waves are
called transverse magnetic or TM waves.

Oblique incidence at a plane dielectric interface

We continue our discussion on the behavior of plane waves at an interface; this time we consider a
plane dielectric interface. As earlier, we consider the two specific cases, namely parallel and
perpendicular polarization.

Fig 6.12: Oblique incidence at a plane dielectric interface

For the case of a plane dielectric interface, an incident wave will be reflected partially and
transmitted partially.
In Fig(6.12), corresponds respectively to the angle of incidence, reflection and
transmission.

1. Parallel Polarization

As discussed previously, the incident and reflected field components can be written as

..........................(6.82)

..........................(6.83)

In terms of the reflection coefficient

..........................(6.84)

The transmitted filed can be written in terms of the transmission coefficient T

..........................(6.85)

We can now enforce the continuity of tangential field components at the boundary i.e. z=0

..........................(6.86)

If both and are to be continuous at z=0 for all x , then form the phase matching we have
 We find that

..........................(6.87)

Further, from equations (6.86) and (6.87) we have

..........................(6.88)

or ..........................(6.89)

..........................(6.90)

From equation (6.90) we find that there exists specific angle for which = 0 such that
 or .........................(6.91)

Further, .........................(6.92)
For non magnetic material
Using this condition

.........................(6.93)

From equation (6.93), solving for we get

This angle of incidence for which = 0 is called Brewster angle. Since we are dealing with parallel

polarization we represent this angle by so that

2. Perpendicular Polarization

For this case

.........................(6.94)
 .........................(6.95)

.........................(6.96)

Using continuity of field components at z=0

.........................(6.97)

As in the previous case

.........................(6.98)

Using these conditions we can write

.........................(6.99)

From equation (6.99) the reflection and transmission coefficients for the perpendicular polarization
can be computed as

.........................(6.100)

We observe that if = 0 for an angle of incidence

 Again

or

or

or .........................(6.101)

We observe if i.e. in this case of non magnetic material Brewster angle does not exist
as the denominator or equation (6.101) becomes zero. Thus for perpendicular polarization in
dielectric media, there is Brewster angle so that can be made equal to zero.

From our previous discussion we observe that for both polarizations

If
For ;

The incidence angle for which i.e. is called the critical angle of
incidence. If the angle of incidence is larger than total internal reflection occurs. For such case an
evanescent wave exists along the interface in the x direction (w.r.t. fig (6.12)) that attenuates
exponentially in the normal i.e. z direction. Such waves are tightly bound to the interface and are
called surface waves.