Extended Yeh’s method for optically active anisotropic layered media

We extend the original method of Yeh [J. Opt. Soc. Am. 69, 742 (1979)] for calculating the reflection and transmission from anisotropic layered structures to media exhibiting not only dielectric, but also magnetic anisotropy, as well as optical activity. We likewise establish the relationship between the optical activity and gyration tensors from the two most used constitutive relations for optically active media and illustrate the extended Yeh’s method on a practically important example.