Abstract

In spite of prolonged discussion, significant disagreement still remains among scientists on the form of material equations and boundary conditions that should be used in electrodynamics of a bounded medium with space dispersion (SD).^1-3 However, whereas in some papers the results obtained are similar in spite of different basic principles,^1,2 in other cases they are quite different.^2,3 Primarily it concerns the question as to whether the specular optical activity (SOA) takes place³ or not^1,2 in the case of vertical light reflection from a linear isotropic gyrotropic medium without spontaneous magnetization. It should be noted that in most experiments the SOA was not observed under the above-mentioned conditions.⁴ However, measurements of the SOA (for example, on the total internal reflection or on reflection from a nonlinear medium¹ may provide a very efficient alternative method of chiral materials spectroscopy, that in some cases (thin plates or a strongly absorbing medium) is far more useful than the current methods based on measurements of polarization characteristics of transmitted light. Furthermore, attempts to observe the SOA on light reflection from high-T_c superconductors are now one of the important lines in investigations of super-conductors.⁵ So it appears that at the present time the question of the correct form of the boundary conditions on the surface of a medium with SD is very urgent. In particular, it concerns the interpretation of the experimental results obtained, which are often conflicting to a large extent.

© 1994 IEEE