Uniaxial IB-Medium Interface and Novel Boundary Conditions

The class of uniaxial electromagnetic IB media involving five medium parameters is defined as a special case of the previously defined class of general IB media (or skewon-axion media) involving 16 parameters. The problem of plane-wave reflection from and transmission through the interface of a uniaxial IB-medium half space is analyzed. It is shown that, for general values of the medium parameters, waves polarized TE and TM with respect to the normal direction are reflected as from the respective PEC and PMC boundaries. Unlike the anisotropic soft-and-hard surface which has a somewhat similar property, the uniaxial IB interface is isotropic in the plane of the interface. As a consequence, a novel class of electromagnetic boundaries can be defined for general fields requiring vanishing of the normal components of both D and B vectors at the boundary. Another realization of such a boundary in terms of an anisotropic metamaterial with zero axial permittivity and permeability is discussed.