Abstract

We report what we believe to be the first rigorous numerical solution of the two-dimensional Maxwell equations for optical propagation within, and scattering by, a random medium of macroscopic dimensions. Our solution is based on the pseudospectral time-domain technique, which provides essentially exact results for electromagnetic field spatial modes sampled at the Nyquist rate or better. The results point toward the emerging feasibility of direct, exact Maxwell equations modeling of light propagation through many millimeters of biological tissues. More generally, our results have a wider implication: Namely, the study of electromagnetic wave propagation within random media is moving toward exact rather than approximate solutions of Maxwell’s equations.

© 2004 Optical Society of America

Simulation of enhanced backscattering of light by numerically solving Maxwell’s equations without heuristic approximations

Snow H. Tseng, Young L. Kim, Allen Taflove, Duncan Maitland, Vadim Backman, and Joseph T. Walsh
Opt. Express 13(10) 3666-3672 (2005)

Analytical techniques for addressing forward and inverse problems of light scattering by irregularly shaped particles

Xu Li, Zhigang Chen, Jianmin Gong, Allen Taflove, and Vadim Backman
Opt. Lett. 29(11) 1239-1241 (2004)

Investigation of the noise-like structures of the total scattering cross-section of random media

Snow H. Tseng, Allen Taflove, Duncan Maitland, Vadim Backman, and Joseph T. Walsh
Opt. Express 13(16) 6127-6132 (2005)

Perfect optical solitons: spatial Kerr solitons as exact solutions of Maxwell's equations

Alessandro Ciattoni, Bruno Crosignani, Paolo Di Porto, and Amnon Yariv
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 22(7) 1384-1394 (2005)

Exact and approximate solutions of Maxwell’s equations for a confocal cavity

P. Varga and P. Török
Opt. Lett. 21(19) 1523-1525 (1996)