Abstract

The enhanced backscattering of light from a small rms height, small rms slope, one-dimensional randomly rough surface of a metal was first predicted on the basis of an infinite-order perturbation calculation that used the techniques of many-body theory and employed the concepts of weak localization theory. In this paper we present an elementary calculation of the contribution to the mean differential reflection coefficient from the incoherent component of the scattered light that is based on the first few terms in the expansion of this function in powers of the surface profile function. We show that this approach accounts not only for enhanced backscattering but gives the correct order of magnitude of the effect predicted by infinite-order perturbation theory.

© 1992 Optical Society of America