BISTATIC SCATTERING-WIDTH COMPUTATION FOR WEAKLY NONLINEAR DIELECTRICCYLINDERS OF ARBITRARY INHOMOGENEOUS CROSS-SECTION SHAPES UNDER TRANSVERSE-MAGNETIC WAVE ILLUMINATION

An iterative numerical approach to the approximate computation of the bistatic scattering width for weakly nonlinear dielectric infinite cyl inders is proposed. The cylinders are assumed to be arbitrarily shaped and illuminated by a transverse-magnetic wave. The bistatic scatterin g width is calculated with an iterative numerical technique that can u se both the classic first-order Born approximation and the distorted-w ave Born approximation to provide the starting internal field distribu tion. Several numerical results are presented concerning Kerr-like non linearities. Circular and square cylinders are considered, as well as shells and scatterers with irregular cross sections. The effects of th e nonlinearities, of the incident-field amplitude, and of the ratios b etween linear dimensions and wavelengths are analyzed, and the converg ence of the iterative approach is evaluated in some significant cases. (C) 1995 Optical Society of America