Diffraction of a plane wave by a right angled wedge which sustains surface waves on one face

We discuss the diffracted field that arises when an incident plane electromagnetic wave strikes a right angled wedge. One face of the wedge is a perfect conductor and the other face supports and sustains surface waves. The solution on which the discussion is based was obtained in [1] by using an elementary technique developed by the authors. Since this method has been adequately treated in the literature [2]-[7], most of the calculations are omitted, f However, the structure of the field along the surface of the wedge at external grazing incidence (60 7r/2 in Fig. This is because there are certain difficulties and subtleties associated with this special case which do not seem to have been noticed in the literature and are not discussed in our previous papers. These results are particularly interesting and significant since special features of the field found in the present simple problem may reasonably be expected to emerge from a careful study of the more general, but less detailed, analyses of wedges of arbitrary angle (see Maluzhinets [8] and Williams [9]). A consequence of this detailed analysis is that the amplitude of the surface wave for small values of the parameter characterizing the surface differs from that given by Williams [9] by a factor of 2. Finally, we plot several curves that illustrate the results obtained. These numerical results are important since they help considerably in the understanding of the interaction between the electromagnetic field and the characteristic surface parameter.