Electromagnetic scattering by a dielectric coated sphere partially buried in a ground plane

An analytic solution of the problem of electromagnetic wave scattering by a dielectric coated spherical scatterer residing or partially buried in an infinite perfectly conducting ground plane is formulated in conjunction with the method of images. The solution of this problem may be used to detect partially buried land or ocean mines. The incident wave is assumed to be a uniform electromagnetic plane wave of arbitrary angle of incidence. The method of images is applied to replace the partially buried dielectric coated scatterer by two overlapped dielectric coated scatterers of equal size, or by two touching dielectric coated spheres of equal size if the sphere is residing on the infinite ground plane, and a supplementary incident electromagnetic plane wave such that the boundary condition for the total electric field is satisfied at all points where the ground plane was located in the original problem. The scattered field coefficients are obtained from which the scattered fields can be obtained everywhere.