Abstract
The diffraction of an electromagnetic spherical wave (emanating from a point source) by a perfectly conducting strip in a biisotropic medium is investigated. This consideration is important because the point source is regarded as a fundamental radiating device. The vector diffraction problem is reduced to the scattering of a single scalar field, this scalar field being the normal component of either a left-handed or a right-handed Beltrami field. The diffraction problem of the left-handed field component is explicitly analyzed, that of the right-handed field component being analogously tractable. The problem is solved using the Wiener–Hopf technique and asymptotic methods. The diffracted field is shown to be sum of fields produced by the two edges of the strip and an interaction field. Finally, physical interpretation of the result is discussed.