Fundamentals of Light Propagation and Optics

Light propagation can be described by the theory of electromagnetic fields (Born and Wolf 1980, Born 1981, Hecht 1989), which is based on Maxwell’s equations $$curlH = S + \frac{{\partial D}}{{\partial t}},\quad curlE = - \frac{{\partial B}}{{\partial t}}$$ (3.1) $$curlH = S + \frac{{\partial D}}{{\partial t}},\quad curlE = - \frac{{\partial B}}{{\partial t}}$$ (3.2) $$D = \varepsilon E,\quad S = \kappa E,\quad B = \mu H$$ (3.3) These equations establish a relation between the electric field strength E, the magnetic field strength Hand the charge distribution in space ρ.