A New Representation for the Green's Function of Multilayer Media Based on Plane Wave Expansion

In this paper, a new representation for the space domain Green's function of general multilayer media is presented. This approach is based on an efficient plane wave expansion of the source incident field. Using the transmission line model for the multilayer medium, the effect of the layered medium on the incident plane waves is determined by a transmission coefficient, and the amplitude and phase of each plane wave at the field point are obtained. The total field is evaluated by summing the resultant plane waves at the field point. The main advantage of the proposed method is that the spatial domain Green's function of multilayer media can be obtained easily as a summation of simple exponential functions, without the need for Sommerfeld integration or complex image approximation. The plane wave approximation is independent of the parameters of the medium and is valid over a wide frequency range. Furthermore, the exponential form of the plane wave solution makes it possible to compute the method of moments matrix elements analytically for most important types of basis functions in multilayer problems.