BISTATIC SCATTERING-WIDTH COMPUTATION FOR WEAKLY NONLINEAR DIELECTRIC CYLINDERS OF ARBITRARY INHOMOGENEOUS CROSS-SECTION SHAPES UNDER TRANSVERSE-MAGNETIC WAVE ILLUMINATION

An iterative numerical approach to the approximate computation of the bistatic scattering width for weakly nonlinear dielectric infinite cylinders is proposed. The cylinders are assumed to be arbitrarily shaped and illuminated by a transverse-magnetic wave. The bistatic scattering width is calculated with an iterative numerical technique that can use both the classic first-order Born approximation and the distorted-wave Born approximation to provide the starting internal field distribution. Several numerical results are presented concerning Kerr-like nonlinearities. Circular and square cylinders are considered, as well as shells and scatterers with irregular cross sections. The effects of the nonlinearities, of the incident-field amplitude, and of the ratios between linear dimensions and wavelengths are analyzed, and the convergence of the iterative approach is evaluated in some significant cases. (C) 1995 Optical Society of America