ENHANCED BACKSCATTERING AND CROSS DEPOLARIZATION FROM MULTISCALE SURFACE

Measurements of enhanced backscattering are presented from a range of characterized metallic surfaces of differing roughnesses by use of both visible and infrared laser radiation. The surfaces are isotropic and exhibit fractal behavior over a wide range of scale sizes with an estimated fractal index close to the marginal value of 2. Unlike previously reported results from work that used smoothly varying single-scale surfaces, these results obtained with the use of multiscale surfaces exhibit enhanced backscattering, even close to grazing incidence in both the copolarized and the cross-depolarized scattered components. The magnitude of the backscattered enhancement and the ratio of cross-depolarized to copolarized backscattered radiation show similar variations with the measured surface roughness, suggesting that both may possibly be due to the same mechanism, namely, multiple scattering.