Fresnel coefficients, coherent optical scattering and planar waveguiding

Abstract

One-dimensional optical waveguiding is revisited using the electromagnetic deduction of Fresnel formulas relating the incident, reflected, and transmitted waves on the abrupt interface between two different optical media. Throughout the paper, different optical configurations are analyzed from this perspective revealing that, in all cases, those solutions corresponding to waveguiding configurations share common features. These shared characteristics are: firstly, the guided modes always emerge as singular solutions of the associate coherent optical scattering problem and, secondly, the resonance condition that must be satisfied corresponds to the pole of the associated Fresnel Coefficients.