Total internal reflection of pulsed light beam upon ideal non-absorbing plasma

Abstract

Total internal reflection (TIR) of a pulsed light beam from vacuum incident upon an ideal non-absorbing plasma was investigated theoretically using the Fourier transform method. Because of the Goos-Ha¨nchen effect, the reflected pulsed beam undergoes distortions such as carrier frequency shift and chirp. The distortions are magnified on condition that the pulsed beam is TM-polarized and illuminates the interface at large angle of incidence, which should be avoided for reflection of pulsed beam upon optical mirrors with metal film. Meanwhile, it is shown that the Goos-Ha¨nchen shift and time delay of this TIR can be both positive and negative, which is consistent with the results obtained from stationary phase theory.

Analysis of Propagation and Polarization Characteristics of Electromagnetic Waves Through Nonuniform Magnetized Plasma Slab Using Propagator Matrix Method

“…It is very important to find out the mechanism and phenomena about the interactions between EM wave and plasma in the study of this technology. In the past twenty years, a number of analytical and numerical methods have been proposed to investigate the wave propagation in plasma [2,3,[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. Hu et al [15] used a scattering matrix method to calculate the reflection, transmission and absorption characteristic of EM wave propagation in nonuniform magnetized plasma, where the external magnetized field direction is perpendicular to the direction of EM wave propagation.…”

“…Robert M. Manning [12] handled the EM wave propagation process through a flowing plasma immersed in an external magnetic field using the Vlasov equations. In [19], the total internal reflection of a pulsed light beam from vacuum incident upon an ideal non-absorbing plasma was investigated theoretically using the Fourier transform method. Liu et al [13] and Lei Shi et al [14] carried out the studies on the transmission solution of EM waves propagation through plasma sheath by adopting the finite difference time-domain (FDTD) method.…”