Analysis of the rigorous coupled wave approach for \(p\)-polarized light in gratings (Q2222179)

The authors consider an electromagnetic scattering problem for a periodic grating where the incident field is given by a p-polarized plane wave. For the solution of this problem, they study the ``rigorous coupled wave approach'', where the periodicity properties of the solution allow the use of the Fourier series for the expansion of the scattered fields. In particular, the scattering problem is approximated by replacing the relative permittivity with a piecewise constant function in the direction perpendicular to the periodicity of the grating and expressing the problem in terms of the Fourier coefficients of the magnetic field. The authors show the convergence of the method when the discretization step in the approximation of the relative permittivity tends to zero, and when the number of Fourier coefficients in the approximation of the magnetic field tends to infinity. The paper concludes with some concrete examples giving a numerical evidence of the convergence results.