From Electromagnetic Field Theory Fundamentals, Second Edition
8.1 Introduction
We have stated 
this in Chapter 7 and we state it again: Maxwell s equations contain all the information necessary to characterize the electromagnetic fields at any point in a medium. For the electromagnetic (EM) fields to exist they must satisfy the four Maxwell equations at the source where they are generated, at any point in a medium through which they propagate, and at the load where they are received or absorbed.
In this chapter, we concentrate mainly on the propagation of EM fields in a source-free medium. As the fields must satisfy the four coupled Maxwell equations involving four unknown variables, we first obtain an equation in terms of one unknown variable. Similar equations can then be obtained for the other variables. We refer to these equations as the general wave equations. We will show in Chapter 11 that the fields generated by time-varying sources propagate as spherical waves. However, in a small region far away from the radiating source, the spherical wave may be approximated as a plane wave, that is, one in which all the field quantities are in a plane normal to the direction of its propagation (the transverse plane). Consequently, a plane wave does not have any field component in its direction of propagation (the longitudinal direction).
We first seek the solution of a plane wave in an unbounded dielectric medium and show that the wave travels with the speed of light in free space. We then consider the general...
Products & Services
Topics of Interest
9.1 Introduction In Chapter 8, we discussed the propagation of a plane wave in an unbounded medium. Because the wave had neither electric nor magnetic field components in the longitudinal direction,...
3.1 INTRODUCTION In this chapter and Chapter 4, waves are considered in 3-D, in general. However, in some applications such as in integrated optics in which propagation of waves on a surface...
In this chapter we explore the propagation of the simplest wave solutions of Maxwell s equations. We begin with the one-dimensional case and generalize to a planar wave in vector coordinates. We shall...
2.3 LINEAR LIGHTWAVE PROPAGATION IN AN OPTICAL FIBER 2.3.1 Electromagnetic Preliminaries Any treatment of light guiding in a fiber must begin with the Maxwell equations and describe their...
11.1 Introduction We now understand how fields propagate in an unbounded medium as plane waves and carry energy from one point to the other, how energy is transmitted along a transmission line, and...
