The advent of metamaterials with tailorable frequency dispersion ensured the emergence of transformation optics with proposed applications that include cloaking devices, superconcentrators, superabsorbers, beam shapers and benders, field and polarization rotators, etc. A crucial property of interest for transformation optics is the possibility to custom design the spatial dependence of optical properties, i.e. to attain a gradient of effective refractive index. The cylindrical geometry has been one of the prototypal proposed forms and actually the first theoretical and experimental cloaking devices had radial symmetry. In this contribution we present an exact analytical approach to the solution of Helmholtz' equations applied to radial propagation of electromagnetic waves through a cylinder containing negative and positive refractive index parts. A hyperbolic tangent gradient of refractive index is assumed. Our approach is inspired by the correspondence between transformation optics and quantum mechanics. A remarkably simple exact analytical solution is derived that takes into account realistic losses in negative-positive refractive index material composites.