Padé approximants of the Born series of electromagnetic scattering by a diffraction grating

We present the realization of a vectorial perturbation method based on the Born series applied to strong electromagnetic scattering problems. We present the general theoretical formalism and show a semianalytical implementation for scattering by diffraction gratings. We are particularly interested in the strong scattering regime, where the Born series is known to wildly (namely, exponentially) diverge. By applying Padé approximation to the vectorial Born series, we are able to obtain accurate results from divergent Born series. The method we present has the inherent benefit of being close to the actual physical mechanism behind the formation of a scattered signal, as the solution is built step by step from a sequence of multiple-scattering events. This helps in the understanding of signal formation, which is a key element in inverse scattering problems that are relevant to optical metrology, among others.