High-Frequency Evaluation of the Field Inside and Outside an Acute-Angled Dielectric Wedge

Abstract

Explicit closed form solutions are presented for the high-frequency evaluation of the electromagnetic field produced inside and outside an acute-angled lossless penetrable wedge. Both cases of E- and H-polarized incident plane waves are addressed in the study. The problem is tackled and solved in the framework of the uniform theory of diffraction, so that the total field at the observation point is determined by adding the geometrical optics contributions and the diffraction one. This last is obtained by performing a uniform asymptotic evaluation of the radiation integrals arising from a physical optics approximation for the equivalent electric and magnetic surface currents lying on the infinite wedge boundaries. No limitation exists on the refractive index of the structure. The accuracy of the solution is assessed by comparisons with data produced by numerical tools. The physical optics approximation gives rise to inaccuracies when using the solution at grazing incidence and in correspondence of the dielectric interfaces.