On non-monochromatic plane-wave solutions of Maxwell's equations

Abstract

In electrodynamics courses and textbooks the properties of plane electromagnetic waves in both conducting and non-conducting media are typically studied from the point of view of the prototype case of a monochromatic plane wave. In this article the more general, non-monochromatic case is examined, which better exploits the independence of the Maxwell equations and offers new insights in the study of electromagnetic waves.