Abstract

Enhanced backscatter peaks in the diffuse envelope of the scattered radiation from a singlescale 2-D metallic randomly rough surface were first reported by O’Donnell and Mendez.¹ The surfaces, which were made by etching a photoresist coated substrate with laser speckle patterns and coated with gold, had a mean slope of the order of 1. This statistical characteristic of the surfaces exhibiting enhanced backscatter peaks made the available scattering theories unsuitable for comparison to experimental data. In an attempt to alleviate this situation, a set of scattering experiments was carried out using a series of surfaces with similar 1/e correlation length but with varying surface height variance; the surfaces thus ranged from having a small mean slope to a large mean slope. In addition to the above-mentioned experiments, Stokes's were measured, allowing one to express completely the polarization state of the scattered light and more specifically that of the enhanced backscatter peak.

© 1988 Optical Society of America