Light scattering from a cylinder near a plane interface: theory and comparison with experimental data

Abstract

We derive a theory to calculate light scattering from a cylinder on or near a plane interface. There are no restrictions on the values of the refractive indices of the system constituents. We use the approximation that the interference component of the electromagnetic fields strikes the plane interface at normal incidence. The exact solution is asymptotically approached when either the cylinder–interface separation is large compared with the cylinder radius or the difference between the refractive indices separated by the plane interface becomes large or approaches zero. We compare numerical results with experimental Mueller matrix elements measured from a quartz fiber on an aluminum substrate. We find that numerical results calculated with this approximation are a significant improvement over those calculated assuming the interface to be perfectly conducting and those that do not include the interaction fields.