Scattering by a chiral sphere above a half-space.

Abstract

Scattering from a chiral sphere above a lossy half-space, which could be of interest in remote sensing and optics, is analytically examined. The proposed method combines the vector Mie solution and the field transformations between vector spherical functions (VSFs) and plane waves (PWs). Using the reflection coefficients of the half-space and vector Mie solution for the chiral sphere, the first-order Mie field together with a relation between the Mie fields of successive orders are derived. The total Mie field is obtained as a series solution which is next converted to a non-recursive formulation. The scattered field is written as the sum of the total Mie field and its reflection from the half-space. The derived expressions are numerically validated. Some explanations based on the series solution are given and numerical results for different cases are presented and briefly discussed.