ABSTRACT
The scattering of waves of all types is one of the fundamental problems of physics. The essential feature of any multipole method is the application of an ingenious field identity that relates the regular field in the vicinity of any scatterer to fields radiated by other scatterers and external sources. This chapter discusses cylindrical structures. It provides an integrated tutorial on the multipole method, commencing with the analysis of a single scatterer and its extension to a finite cluster. Before commencing the detailed derivation of the theory, the chapter shows that some of the key nomenclature. It considers global array sums and discusses the difficulties in their evaluation caused by convergence problems in the defining series, the terms of which are summed over the direct lattice. The chapter describes some typical applications of the multipole method to studying both index guiding and photonic bandgap guiding microstructured optical fibers.
