Wave parameters of an isotropic chiral medium with losses

Annotation: Plane electromagnetic waves in an isotropic absorbing chiral medium (chiral metamaterial) are considered. The Tellegen’s system of constitutive relations with complex values of dielectric permittivity, magnetic permeability and chirality parameter is applied. A distinction is made between the forward and backward evanescent normal waves of left and right circular polarizations by introducing a special parameter – a wave type identifier. Analytical expressions for real and imaginary parts of wave numbers and wave impedance of homogeneous normal waves are presented.

Keywords: isotropic chiral medium, metamaterial, dissipative losses, complex material parameters, forward normal waves, backward normal waves, wave type identifier, wave number, wave impedance