Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 15, 2026

Using Microwave and Macroscopic Samples of Dielectric Solids to Study the Photonic Properties of Disordered Photonic Bandgap Materials
Published on: September 26, 2014
Asymptotic description of pulsed ultrawideband electromagnetic beam field propagation in dispersive, attenuative
1College of Engineering and Mathematics, University of Vermont, Burlington 05405-0156, USA.
Abstract:
The asymptotic description of the coupled spatial and temporal evolution of a pulsed ultrawideband electromagnetic beam field as it propagates through a dispersive, attenuative material that occupies the half-space z > or = z(0) is obtained from the angular spectrum of plane waves representation. This angular-spectrum representation expresses the wave field as a superposition of both homogeneous and inhomogeneous plane waves. The paraxial approximation of the spatial part of this representation for nontruncated beam fields results in a description that explicitly displays the temporal evolution of the pulsed-beam field through a single-contour integral that is of the same form as that obtained for a pulsed plane-wave field propagating in the positive z direction in a lossy, dispersive medium. The accuracy of this paraxial approximation is shown to improve as the material's attenuation increases.
Related Concept Videos
Propagation of Waves
Consider a scenario where a wave propagates from a string of low linear mass density to a string of high linear mass density. In such a case, the reflected wave is out of phase with respect to the incident wave, however the...
Plane Electromagnetic Waves I
The EM field is assumed to be a...
Propagation Speed of Electromagnetic Waves
Electromagnetic Waves in Matter
Consider the electromagnetic wave passing through a dielectric medium. In such a case, Maxwell's equations get modified. In Ampere's law, ε0 , the dielectric permittivity of free space is replaced with ε, the permittivity of dielectric. Also, the vacuum permeability μ0 is replaced by the permeability of the medium, μ.
Furthermore, the...
Energy Carried By Electromagnetic Waves
Standing Waves in a Cavity

