Effect of the illumination length on the statistical distribution of the field scattered from one-dimensional random rough surfaces: analytical formulae derived from the small perturbation method

We consider a dielectric plane surface with a local cylindrical perturbation illuminated by a monochromatic plane wave. The perturbation is represented by a random function assuming values with a Gaussian probability density with zero mean value. Outside the perturbation zone, the scattered field can be represented by a superposition of a continuous spectrum of outgoing plane waves. The stationary phase method leads to the asymptotic field, the angular dependence of which is given by the scattering amplitudes of the propagating plane waves. The small perturbation method applied to the Rayleigh integral and the boundary conditions gives a first-order approximation of the scattering amplitudes. We show that the real part and the imaginary part of the scattering amplitudes are Gaussian stochastic variables with zero mean values and unequal variances. The values of variances depend on the length of the perturbation zone. In most cases, the probability density function for the amplitude is a Hoyt distribution and the phase is not uniformly distributed between –π and π. The standard Rayleigh and uniform distributions are obtained for special values of the length and in the case of an infinite illumination length.