Observation of the enhanced backscattering of light by the end of a tilted dielectric cylinder owing to the caustic merging transition

The scattering of light by obliquely illuminated circular dielectric cylinders was previously demonstrated to be enhanced by a merger of Airy caustics at a critical tilt angle. [Appl. Opt. 37 , 1534 (1998) . A related enhancement is demonstrated here for backward and near-backward scattering for cylinders cut with a flat end perpendicular to the cylinder] ’s axis. It is expected that merged caustics will enhance the backscattering by clouds of randomly oriented circular cylinders that have appropriately flat ends. [Optical Society of America ]