A systematic Study of Electromagnetic Scattering Anomalies

Description

When an electromagnetic wave impinges upon a structure, scattered waves propagate away from the structure in different radiation channels. A scattering anomaly occurs when the outgoing waves vanish in one or more radiation channels. The scatteringanomalies give rise to interesting wave phenomena such as zero reflection, zero transmission, perfect absorption, mode conversion, etc, and they are useful techniques for manipulating electromagnetic waves including light. However, existing theories onscattering anomalies are incomplete and restricted to special cases. Standard numerical methods for simulating electromagnetic waves are not very efficient at computing the scattering anomalies. In this project, we propose a nonlinear eigenvalue formulation forthe scattering anomalies and solve the nonlinear eigenvalue problem by a contour integral method. We also analyze the fundamental properties of the scattering anomalies, including their existence, their robustness, and their dependence on structural parameters. Our study paves the way for many more applications of scattering anomalies in electromagnetic and photonic devices.