Local field distribution near corrugated interfaces: Green function formalism versus effective medium theory

The recent Green function formalism (GFF) has been used to study the local field distribution near a periodic interface separating two homogeneous media of different dielectric constants. In the GFF, the integral equations can be solved conveniently because of the existence of an analytic expression for the kernel (Greenian). However, due to a severe singularity in the Greenian, the formalism was formerly applied to compute the electric fields away from the interface region. In this work, we have succeeded in extending the GFF to compute the electric field inside the interface region by taking advantage of a sum rule. To our surprise, the strengths of the electric fields are quite similar in both media across the interface, despite of the large difference in dielectric constants. Moreover, we propose a simple effective medium approximation (EMA) to compute the electric field inside the interface region. We show that the EMA can indeed give an excellent description of the electric field, except near a surface plasmon resonance.