Light Scattering by Composite Rough Surfaces

Abstract

Light scattering from a dielectric surface with composite roughness is considered, where the surface irregularities are modelled as a superposition of two roughness types of different length scales. Geometrical optics and the Rayleigh-Rice expansion, respectively, are employed in describing the scattering from the two roughness structures. Contrary to previous work, we concentrate on bistatic cross-sections, which are calculated analytically for scattering in the plane of incidence, and resulting plots for various parameter values are shown, especially for small-scale correlation lengths of the order of the wavelength of the incident light. The main effects of the small-scale roughness are an overall decrease of the coherent reflectance and a depolarization of the scattered light, which in the plane of incidence is not present for scattering from a surface with a single scale of roughness. It is, however, concluded that scattering at the surface and volume scattering have to be taken into account in order to explain the experimentally found degrees of depolarization.