Historical Background of Surface Scatter Theory

Abstract

One of the earliest investigators of scattering from a rough surface was Lord Rayleigh. In 1896 he was investigating the reflection of acoustic waves. Later he noted the effects of poorly polished surfaces on optical performance and examined the effects of surface roughness and angle of incidence on the reflected beam. In 1907 Lord Rayleigh published an extensive vector perturbation theory of scattering from periodically corrugated reflection gratings, which was an extension of his previous work on the theory of sound. In 1919 Chenmoganadam derived a theory of scattered light based on the phase shift of the reflected beam due to the rough surface. However, it was not until World War II, when the problem of background clutter in radar applications became apparent, that a determined effort was made to solve the scattering problem for random surfaces. It was this problem of radar scatter from the sea associated with the detection of naval targets that motivated the work of Rice (1951) and others. Considerable work was also done in attempts to explain radar reflection from the moon.