The difficulties encountered in using conventional formulations of polarised scattering are overcome by employing a target decomposition theorem based on the concept of a target coherency matrix. To illustrate the classification potential of this new formalism, two important scattering problems are considered; the scattering of light by a cloud of randomly oriented anisotropic particles and the reflection of light from a rough surface. In both cases, emphasis is placed on the polarisation properties of the scattered light and experimental results are presented to illustrate the potential of the new formalism for a classification of surfaces and particle clouds.

Date Published: 18 September 1987
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 0810, Optical Systems for Space Applications, (18 September 1987); doi: 10.1117/12.941519

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 0810:
Optical Systems for Space Applications
Hanspeter Lutz; Georges Otrio, Editor(s)