Light scattering from an amplifying medium bounded by a randomly rough surface: A numerical study - art. no. 035425

By numerical simulations we study the scattering of s-polarized light from a rough dielectric film deposited on the planar surface of a semi-infinite perfect conductor. The dielectric film is allowed to be either active or pa ssive, situations that we model by assigning negative and positive values, respectively, to the imaginary part epsilon (2) Of the dielectric constant of the film. We study the reflectance R and the total scattered energy U fo r the system as functions of both epsilon (2) and the angle of incidence of the light. Furthermore, the positions and widths of the enhanced backscatt ering and satellite peaks are discussed. It is found that these peaks becom e narrower and higher when the amplification of the system is increased, an d that their widths are linear functions of epsilon (2) The positions of th e backscattering peaks are found to be independent of epsilon (2), while we find a weak dependence on this quantity in the positions of the satellite peaks.