A theory of wave scattering from an inhomogeneous layer with an irregular interface

Bistatic wave scattering from a layer of Rayleigh scatterers with an irregular interface is investigated by combining the doubling method in volume scattering with the Kirchhoff method in rough surface scattering. Theoretical results are shown illustrating the effect of the rough interface. It is found that for scattered and incident angles near the vertical, the rough interface causes a substantial increase relative to the plane interface in both the like and cross-scattering coefficients over all azimuth angles. However, for large scattered and incident angles, the reverse is true except for azimuth angles around the specular direction. It is interesting to note that while one dominant peak of the like polarized scattering coefficient occurs along the specular direction, two dominant peaks of the cross-polarized scattering coefficient may appear symmetrically with respect to the specular direction. In backscattering, the surface roughness causes a peak to appear in both the like and cross-scattering coefficients at near vertical incidence and also a decrease of these coefficients at large incidence angles.