Some remarks on enhanced total internal reflection

Ľubomír Šumichrast – Jaroslav Franek – Rastislav Dosoudil – Jozefa Červeňnová

   The regime of total internal reflection of plane wave on the boundary between a lossless dielectrics and the lossy, or gainy, medium is analysed. It is shown that in order to achieve enhanced total internal reflection (TIR), ie magnitude of the reflection factor larger than one, the existence of the second boundary, virtually maybe infinitely far away, is inevitable. Some contradictory results published in literature are discussed.

Keywords: reflection and refraction of plane wave on planar boundary, evanescent plane waves in lossy and gainy media, enhanced total internal reflection

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