Depolarized Backscatter Phenomenon from Rough Surfaces

Abstract

In this article, we study the depolarized backscatter enhancement phenomenon for electromagnetic wave scattering from rough surfaces. There is some new experimental data on light scattering from rough metallic surfaces that shows there is an enhancement of backscattering in the antispecular direction under certain conditions of surface parameters, wave polarization, and operating frequency. From a roughly random surface, the backscattering enhancement is predicted as the constructive interference of multiple surfaces scattering. The study is based upon the integral equation method modified to be able to predict the phenomenon of multiple scattering and backscattering enhancement. From the study, it was found that the backscattering enhancement takes place largely on the specialized surface parameters compared with the incident wavelength. Further, it is also concluded that the depolarized multiple scattering makes many contributions along the plane of incidence from random rough surfaces, but depolarized single scattering makes little contributions. In the comparison of model prediction of total multiple scattering strength with measured data along the specular plane, excellent agreement is obtained.

Keywords:

• light scattering
• backscatter
• single scatter
• multiple scatter