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Exact electromagnetic multipole expansion using elementary current multipoles

Radoslaw Kolkowski*, Sagar Sehrawat†, and Andriy Shevchenko‡

  • Department of Applied Physics, Aalto University, P.O. Box 13500, FI-00076 Aalto, Finland

  • *Contact author: radoslaw.kolkowski@aalto.fi
  • †Contact author: ssphy13@gmail.com
  • ‡Contact author: andriy.shevchenko@aalto.fi
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Phys. Rev. B 114, 225407 – Published 8 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/hlsd-99p2

Abstract

Multipole expansion plays an important role in the description of electromagnetic scatterers, allowing them to be accurately characterized by a small set of expansion coefficients. However, to describe electromagnetic excitations inside a scatterer, the current density in it should be decomposed into current multipoles, which include nonradiating current configurations (anapoles) that are absent in the classical field-based expansion. Unfortunately, the use of current multipoles has so far been limited by the absence of an exact and general expression for the current multipole moments beyond their point-multipole approximation. Here, we derive such an expression and present the exact mapping relations between the classical and current multipole moments. We use our theory to calculate the scattering and extinction cross sections for large, wavelength-scale, optical scatterers supporting multipole excitations up to the sixth order, showing perfect agreement with the Mie theory. We also demonstrate the ability of current multipole expansion to describe anapole excitations beyond the small-scatterer approximation, which allows us to derive the exact anapole condition and reveal the actual current configurations and their contributions to scattering. Finally, we show that current multipoles enable a rigorous and intuitive description of chiroptical effects in chiral photonic structures. Our theoretical framework is valid for electromagnetic scatterers of arbitrary sizes and shapes without restrictions on the multipole orders, complementing the existing theory of electromagnetic multipole expansion. The minimalistic and universal character of current multipoles makes them a convenient tool for characterizing and designing diverse electromagnetic scattering systems of arbitrary complexity.

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Phys. Rev. B 114, 225407– Published 8 October, 2026
  • Received 6 March 2026
  • Revised 17 September 2026
  • Accepted 18 September 2026
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