Effective dielectric and photoelastic tensor components in thin layered superlattices

The effective photoelastic constants of a superlattice composed of thin alternating layers of orthorhombic symmetry are calculated as functions of dielectric, elastic and photoelastic constants of the constituents. In a preliminary step to this calculation, we also obtain the effective dielectric tensor for any symmetry of the layers. It is shown that appropriate combinations of these effective constants are arithmetic averages of the corresponding quantities in the constituents, each layer having a weight equal to its relative thickness.