Investigation of the electromagnetic fields at a jump in the dielectric constant

The passage of a plane wave through an inhomogeneous flat insulator layer o f arbitrary thickness without absorption is considered. A method is given f or solving the problem in terms of elementary functions, which reduces the number of independent parameters of the layer. A similarity principle for l ayers having equivalent reflectivities is described. It is shown that the e lectric field intensity can increase to infinity near the critical point wh ere epsilon=0. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S1063-7842(99)00208 -1].