Iterative determination of permittivity and conductivity profiles of a dielectric slab in the time domain

A numerical method is presented to compute one unknown constitutive parameter of an inhomogeoeous lossy dielectric slab from the reflected field in the time domain. The method is based upon a space-time discretization of the integral equation for the reflected field. In the inversion, especially those space-time points where the numerical computation of the electric-field strength in the slab is most accurate are taken into account. This is achieved by computing the unknown parameter iteratively. Alternately solving equations for an approximate direct-scattering problem and an approximate inverse-scattering problem yields successive approximations for the electric field in the slab and the unknown constitutive coefficient. Both problems lead to an infinite system of linear equations from which a finite subsystem is selected. General criteria for this selection are presented. Various profiles have been reconstructed numerically from the reflected field due to a sine-squared incident pulse.