Investigation of the electromagnetic fields at a jump in the dielectric constant

The passage of a plane wave through an inhomogeneous flat insulator layer of arbitrary thickness without absorption is considered. A method is given for solving the problem in terms of elementary functions, which reduces the number of independent parameters of the layer. A similarity principle for layers having equivalent reflectivities is described. It is shown that the electric field intensity can increase to infinity near the critical point where ɛ=0. Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 69, 5–9 (August 1999)