Full-wave analysis of the scattering of a pulsed light beam by dielectric cylinders embedded in a homogeneous medium

An approach to study the time-domain scattering by a set of dielectric cylinders with circular cross section, placed in a semi-infinite medium, is presented. The illuminating light comes from a pulsed beam impinging onto the cylinders from outside the medium. The solution is developed in a semi-analytical way, starting from results based on the Cylindrical Wave Approach pertinent to the case of illumination by a monochromatic plane wave. The method is numerically implemented to simulate the scattering response of buried cylinders illuminated by a pulsed Gaussian beam. In the presented results, the different contributions to the total scattered field are recognizable, giving account of all the interactions between incident field, target and interface. The model adopted is well suited to the study, at optical frequencies, of scattering problems involving biological samples, such as vessels and fibers, embedded in tissues or immersed in fluids, through fast and accurate electromagnetic simulation.