Fractal structure of digital speckle patterns produced by rough surfaces

We report on the fractal analysis of digital speckle patterns experimentally generated using an optical setup to record the light scattered from metallic rough surfaces in the normal direction. Using the differential box counting technique, we have calculated the fractal dimension of digital speckle patterns for six samples with different roughness. Our results show a quadratic dependence between the surface roughness and the fractal dimension of the corresponding digital speckle pattern. As an application a method to determine the surface roughness of metallic surfaces is proposed.