Light scattering by spatially dispersive semiconducting cylinders

Abstract The scattering of light by cylindrical dielectrics is an old problem of wide interest. Most existing works assume spatially non-dispersive dielectrics characterized by a dielectric constant independent of wavenumber. Here we revisit the problem treating spatially dispersive semiconducting cylinders. We calculate the extinction, absorption and scattering cross sections as a function of the cylinder size and light frequency, depending on the properties of the cylinder boundary. Our calculations are based on a recently proposed theory without the use of additional boundary conditions. The results show that the cross sections strongly depend on how the cylinder surface scatters polarization waves, especially for small cylinders of radius much less than the light wavelength.