Of an electromagnetic wave, the power passing through unit area carried by the wave. If the electric and magnetic fields in the wave are E and H respectively (both vector quantities), then the power density is equal to the vector product of the fields:
It is measured in watts per square metre. For a harmonic wave (with E and H both harmonic), a more often quoted value is the average power density, Sav, which is given by
where indicates the real rather than imaginary value, and H* is the complex conjugate of H.