Quasi-Static Analysis of Scattering from a Chiral Sphere

Abstract

Quasi-static analysis similar to that leading to Rayleigh scattering expressions for dielectric and magnetic spheres is extended to small spheres of chiral material. It is seen that the problem unites electrostatics to magnetostatics, and the most natural way of considering the problem is in terms of wave fields, certain combinations of electric and magnetic fields, which is applied in the analysis. For exterior fields the chiral sphere can be replaced by an electric and a magnetic dipole, both having a cross-polarized component which vanishes for a nonchiral medium. The internal field for linearly polarized plane wave is constant and elliptically polarized with nonorthogonal electric and magnetic field components. The resulting expressions can be applied to scattering or measurement problems involving spheres of chiral material.