The transfer-matrix method (TMM) in electromagnetics and optics is a powerful and convenient mathematical formalism for determining the planewave reflection and transmission characteristics of an infinitely extended slab of a linear material. While the TMM was introduced for a homogeneous uniaxial dielectric-magnetic material in the 1960s, and subsequently extended for multilayered slabs, it has more recently been developed for the most general linear materials, namely bianisotropic materials. By means of the rigorous coupled-wave approach, slabs that are periodically nonhomogeneous in the...

The fundamental optical excitations that are confined to a metal/dielectric interface are the surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs), as described by Ritchie. SPPs can be referred to as electromagnetic excitations existing at an interface between two media, of which at least one is conducting. Investigating spoof plasmons in a semiconductor is becoming an increasingly active area of research. The field of plasmonics deals with the application of surface and interface plasmons. It is an area in which surface plasmon-based circuits merge the fields of photonics and electronics at the nanoscale....