Frequency domain wave-splitting techniques for plane stratified bianisotropic media

A plane harmonic electromagnetic wave obliquely incident on a plane stratified bianisotropic medium with multiple discontinuities in the parameters is considered. A covariant wave-splitting approach, based on the use of the formula of integration by parts for multiplicative integrals and the impedance concept, is presented. It encompasses various types of decomposition of the total internal field into two waves propagating in opposite directions, including the physical and vacuum wave splittings treated earlier in the literature, and provides a convenient means for both analytical investigation and numerical calculation of evolution operators (Green’s functions) and impedance tensors of split waves as well as characteristic matrices and reflection and transmission tensors of stratified bianisotropic media. The potentialities of the approach are illustrated by its application to the problems of reflection, transmission, and guided propagation, and by generalizing the method of multiple reflections to the case of stratified bianisotropic media.