Abstract

There exists a vast literature relating to the statistical properties of light obtained by scattering laser light by a moving diffuser. Some publications are restricted to an analysis of the effects produced by a uniformly moving diffuser with a slit aperture along its direction of motion.¹,² We show that this case is rather exceptional, because it generates a field that is spatially completely coherent at each frequency.³ The physical reasons for this result are discussed. We also derive an expression for the spectrum of the far field produced by scattering of a polychromatic plane wave incident normally on the diffuser. We find that it differs from the spectrum of the incident field in two respects: It suffers a Doppler shift due to the motion of the diffuser, and it is modified in a manner that depends on the correlation properties of the diffuser. Numerical examples are given which show that, although these effects are relatively small, they are within the range of experiment.

© 1988 Optical Society of America