Modification to the Fresnel formulas for amplified or attenuated internal reflection

Abstract

The present study addresses the question of total internal reflection of a plane wave from an amplifying or attenuating medium. Inspection on the expressions for the modal gain or loss of an asymmetric planar waveguide having an amplifying or attenuating cladding has led us to the coefficients for amplified or attenuated internal reflection. The derived formulas suggest an interpretation that the refracted inhomogeneous plane wave undergoes amplification or attenuation while it travels a distance equal to the Goos–Hänchen shift along the boundary plane before going back into the high-index medium. Furthermore, the evanescent wave in the low-index medium is discussed. Unlike the transparent case, the Poynting vector is shown to have a nonvanishing time-averaged component perpendicular to the boundary plane.