Scalarization approach in the theory of electromagnetic waves in generally bianisotropic stratified media

The article presents an efficient method for studying EM wave excitation and propagation in a generally bianisotropic stratified medium. By this method, the field quantities can be expressed in a highly invariant and symmetric form through two scalar potentials, for which a fourth-order system of two coupled ordinary differential equations is derived. These equations can be solved without difficulty via standard numerical means. The scalarization method is applied to obtain the spectral dyadic Green´s functions and determine the plane-wave reflection coefficients and the dispersion equation for the eigenmode propagation constants referring to a generally bianisotropic plane-layered halfspace.