LIGHT-SCATTERING FROM A CYLINDER NEAR A PLANE INTERFACE - THEORY AND COMPARISON WITH EXPERIMENTAL-DATA

We derive a theory to calculate light scattering from a cylinder on or near a plane interface. There are no restrictions on the values of th e refractive indices of the system constituents. We use the approximat ion that the interference component of the electromagnetic fields stri kes the plane interface at normal incidence. The exact solution is asy mptotically approached when either the cylinder-interface separation i s large compared with the cylinder radius or the difference between th e refractive indices separated by the plane interface becomes large or approaches zero. We compare numerical results with experimental Muell er matrix elements measured from a quartz fiber on an aluminum substra te. We find that numerical results calculated with this approximation are a significant improvement over those calculated assuming the inter face to be perfectly conducting and those that do not include the inte raction fields. (C) 1996 Optical Society of America.