Refraction in electrically thin inhomogeneous media.

This work presents a new formulation for refraction from flat electrically thin lenses and reflectors comprised of inhomogeneous material. Inhomogeneous electrically thin flat lenses and reflectors cannot make use of the Snell law since this classical formulation works solely at interfaces of planar homogeneous media. The refraction of a perpendicularly incident plane wave at a planar interface is physically explained through the phase advance of the rays within the medium. The Huygens principle is then used to construct the refracted wavefront. The formulation is validated using numerical full wave simulation for several examples where the refractive angle is predicted with good accuracy. Furthermore, the formulation gives a physical insight of the phenomenon of refraction from electrically thin inhomogeneous media.