Evanescent wave interference and the total transparency of a warm high-density plasma slab

Abstract

It is shown that an overcritical density plasma slab can be totally transparent to a p-polarized obliquely incident electromagnetic wave. High transparency is achieved due to the interference of the evanescent waves in the subcritical region. The transmission coefficient has the resonant character due to the excitation of a plasma surface mode (plasmon-polariton). It is crucial that two evanescent waves have certain phase shift to provide non-zero energy flux through non-transparent region. The required phase shift is obtained at the exact resonance and corresponds to the absolute transparency. In a warm plasma case, the excitation of the propagating longitudinal (electrostatic) modes becomes possible. We demonstrate that these longitudinal excitations facilitate the total transparency of an opaque plasma slab creating additional resonances in the transmission property of the system.

Surface waves on the spin-1/2 quantum magnetoplasma half-space

“…They restricted their attentions to electrostatic surface waves on cold cylindrical plasma columns. The effect of a finite temperature on the dispersion relation of electrostatic surface waves was studied by Ritchie (1963), who applied a simple hydrodynamical model, and Guernsey (1969), who adopted the kinetic theory. Vedenov provided a general dispersion relation without limiting to electrostatic approximation, which showed that in cold plasma half-space, surface plasma polaritons existed with frequencies ranging from ω spps → ω P / √ 2 down to ω spps = 0 (Vedenov 1965).…”

Resonant transparency of materials with negative permittivity

“…Matching of the evanescent solutions with the incident vacuum wave (at the other side of the negative ǫ region) shows that the total transmission may be obtained only when the transition layer with ǫ > 0 is included [11]. The condition of the absolute transparency is equivalent to the resonant condition for the excitation of the surface plasma mode.…”

“…In this case, the resonant excitation of surface modes by the incident light can be achieved via the presence of a single transition layer with 0 < ǫ < 1 on one side of the slab with ǫ < 0 [11]. The superposition of two evanescent waves provides a finite energy flux through the region with ǫ < 0, which is equal to that in the incident electromagnetic wave.…”

Resonant Modes and Resonant Transmission in Multi-Layer Structures

“…In particular, the effects of surface wave plasmons on reflection and guiding properties of multi-layer structures were analyzed in [17][18][19][20]. Resonant transmission has also been studied theoretically in earlier works [10,[21][22][23]. Tunneling phenomena in general remain to be of great interest and subject of controversies in quantum mechanics [24,25] and the results of this paper are relevant to quantum mechanical resonant tunneling.…”