ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES IN A NONLINEAR DISPERSIVE SLAB

Abstract

The electromagnetic scattering of a normal incident plane wave from a strongly nonlinear and dispersive dielectric slab is considered. The dynamics of the polarization density vector are described through a forced nonlinear ordinary differential equation of Duffing type, which takes both dispersive and nonlinear effects into account. The aim of the paper is to study the behaviour of the electromagnetic fields by using the Galerkin method. In particular it is shown that shock waves with infinite slope cannot be developed in real media because of the dispersion . [Vol. 12, No. 2 (1997), Special Issue on Numerical Field Calculations in Electrical Engineering pp 16-19]