Potential representation of electromagnetic fields in decomposableanisotropic media

Abstract

An electromagnetic field representation in terms of two scalarpotential functions, generalized Hertz potentials, is introduced to fieldsoutside the source region in a certain class of anisotropic media. The classis labelled decomposable anisotropic media, a generalization of uniaxialanisotropic media, in which any electromagnetic fields outside the sources canbe decomposed into TE and TM partial fields with respect to two axialdirections defined by the medium. A potential representation is introduced byfirst expressing the fields in terms of their axial components. Instead ofdifferential equations of the fourth order, satisfied by the field vectors,the potential functions are shown to satisfy second-order differentialequations which reduce to the classical ones for the special cases ofisotropic and uniaxially anisotropic media. A comparison of solving theelectromagnetic field vectors through potentials or axial field components isbriefly discussed.