Wave Propagation in Sinusoidally Stratified Plasma Media

The problem of the propagation of electromagnetic waves in a sinusoidally stratified plasma media is treated analytically. The propagation characteristics of TE and TM waves are determined, respectively, from the characteristic equations of the resultant Mathieu and Hill equations. Detailed dispersion characteristics of TE and TM waves in an infinite stratified plasma medium and in waveguides filled longitudinally with this stratified dispersion material are given. It is found that, although the stop-band and pass-band structures exist for the ω-β diagrams of both TE and TM waves, detailed dispersion properties for TE and TM waves are quite different for most frequency ranges except when [(ω/ωp0)2−1]2≫δ2, where ω is the frequency of the propagating waves, ωp0 is the average plasma frequency of the inhomogeneous plasma medium, and δ is the amplitude of the sinusoidally varying term for the electron-density profile (0 ≤ δ ≤ 1).