APPLICATION OF A RAY-TRACING MODEL TO THE STUDY OF BACK SCATTERING FROM SURFACES WITH PARTICLES

A set of experimental back-scattering patterns produced by metallic su rfaces consisting of spheres on a flat surface is presented. The study is made within the plane of incidence for copolarized light (polariza tion parallel or perpendicular to the plane of incidence), for two sph ere diameters phi = 1.1 and 3.0 mu m, and for an incident wavelength l ambda = 0.633 mu m. Also, a simple ray-tracing method is presented for the analysis of a one-dimensional surface model (cylinders on a flat substrate) whose results are compared with those obtained from the exp eriment. The effects of the surface particle density on back-scatterin g patterns are analysed both experimentally and through an incoherent geometrical addition of rays.