ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the generalization of the Yeh’s formalism to absorbing layered magnetically ordered media. This represents a unified approach to the problem of electromagnetic response in multilayer anisotropic planar structures. The main motivation comes from the practical applications of nanostructures in optoelectronics, microelectronics, and magnetic or magnetooptic recording. In magnetooptics, the systematic interest started in the 60s when the concept of magnetooptic memory and that of perpendicular recording was introduced. In 1967, Hunt published the response analysis of a metallic magnetooptic film sandwiched between dielectric layered structures. Several simpler situations are included as special cases, e.g., the complex Faraday and magnetooptic Kerr effects, the enhancement of the magnetooptic response with dielectric or metallic films, and the effect of interfaces between magnetic films in multilayers, etc. R. Gamble and P. H. Lissberger analyzed, among others, electromagnetic field distributions in multilayers.
