Both isotropic and uniaxially anisotropic media capable of supporting backward waves are reviewed. Such an effect recently has been of great interest, and certain man‐made composite media have been introduced under the names “media with negative refraction factor” or “left‐handed materials,” effective in a certain band of microwaves. Neither of these names appears to be well founded, and “backward‐wave medium” (or BW medium) is suggested instead. It is shown that, at an interface of a regular and a BW medium, Snell's law does not imply a negative refraction factor. However, the refraction is anomalous in the sense that the transmitted plane wave is a backward wave with a Poynting vector and a wave vector pointing in opposite lateral directions. The significance of the Zenneck wave and guided modes in a cylindrical guide made of BW medium is discussed. Finally, the BW property is extended to uniaxially anisotropic media, and its occurrence is studied for different value combinations of its medium parameters. It is shown that a lateral backward wave can arise when a plane wave is transmitted through an interface when one of the four parameters of the uniaxial medium is negative. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 31: 129–133, 2001.

The present paper reports the results of an extensive numerical analysis of electromagnetic fields in random dielectric materials. The effective permittivity of a two-dimensional (2-D) dielectric mixture is calculated by FDTD simulations of such a sample in a TEM waveguide. Various theoretical bounds are tested in light of the numerical simulations. The results show how the effective permittivity of a mixture with random inclusion positionings is distributed. All possible permittivity values lie between Wiener limits, and according to FDTD simulations the values are almost always between Hashin-Shtrikman limits. Calculated permittivity distribution is also compared with theoretical mixture models. No model seems to be able to predict the simulated behavior over the whole range of volume fraction.

The present paper reports the results of a numerical analysis of electric fields in random dielectric materials. The effective permittivity of a three-dimensional (3-D) dielectric mixture is calculated by the finite difference method. The results show the distribution of the effective permittivity of a mixture with different random inclusion positionings. New empirical mixing models are created as least squares approximations to fit the collection of numerical results. The calculated permittivity distribution is also compared with theoretical mixture models, showing that in case of clustered inclusions, the Bruggeman model is quite reasonable. On the other hand, if the inclusions in the mixture are separate, the results are closer to the Maxwell-Garnett model.

An extensive study on specific absorption rate (SAR) covering 720 simulations and 15 voxel models (18-105 kg) has been performed by applying the parallel finite-difference time-domain method. High-resolution whole-body models have been irradiated with plane waves from 300 MHz to 5 GHz by applying various incoming directions and polarizations. Detailed results of whole-body SAR and peak 10 g SAR are reported, and SAR variation in the dB scale is examined. For an adult, the effect of incoming direction on whole-body SAR is larger in the GHz range than at around 300-450 MHz, and the effect is stronger with vertical polarization. For a child (height approximately 1.2 m), the effect of incoming direction is similar as for an adult, except at 300 MHz for horizontal polarization. The effect of the phantom (18-105 kg) on whole-body SAR is larger at around 2-5 GHz and at vertical 300 MHz (proximity of whole-body resonance for the child) than at around horizontal 300-900 MHz. Body posture has little effect on whole-body SAR in the GHz range, but at around 300-450 MHz, one may even expect a 2 dB rise in whole-body SAR if posture is changed from the standing position. Posture affects peak 10 g SAR much more than whole-body SAR. The polarization of the incident electric field may have an effect of several dB on whole-body SAR. Between 2 and 5 GHz for adults, whole-body SAR is higher for horizontal than for vertical polarization, if the incoming direction is in the azimuth plane. In the GHz range, horizontal polarization gives higher whole-body SAR, especially for irradiation from the lateral direction. A comparison between homogeneous and heterogeneous models was done. A homogenized model underestimates whole-body SAR, especially at approximately 2 GHz. The basic restriction of whole-body SAR, set by ICNIRP, is exceeded in the smallest models ( approximately 20 kg) at the reference level of exposure, but also some adult phantoms are close to the limit. The peak 10 g SAR limits were never exceeded in the studied cases. The present ICNIRP guidelines should be revised by lowering the reference levels, especially at around 2-5 GHz.

Electrostatic image theory is developed for a point charge at the axis of revolution of a perfectly conducting prolate spheroid. A previous theory, introduced in 1995, presenting the image as a line charge between the focal points, was seen to be numerically stable only when the charge is far enough from the spheroid and when the eccentricity of the spheroid is large enough. The theory is improved by extracting a point charge from the line image, whence the remaining line charge becomes numerically better behaved, as demonstrated by some examples. Because the extracted point image theory reduces analytically to the classical Kelvin image in the case when the spheroid reduces to a sphere, and the line image simultaneously vanishes, the present theory can be seen as a generalization of the Kelvin image theory.