Rigorous formulation of scattering at a randomly varying impedance plane: general case of oblique incidence

The problem of scattering of electromagnetic plane waves at one-dimensional surfaces (random gratings) is solved in the general case in which the incident wave vector does not lie on the main section of the cylindrical surface (oblique incidence). The scatterer is simulated by a plane boundary characterized by a coordinate-dependent impedance that varies along one of the two coordinates on the surface. This representation could be regarded as a canonical model of one-dimensional surfaces with height corrugations. A rigorous electromagnetic formalism for calculating the fields scattered at the impedance plane is presented. The fields above the scatterer are represented by spectral domain expansions. It is shown that the wave vectors of the scattered waves lie on the surface of a cone containing the direction of specular reflection and whose axis coincides with the direction of the grooves of the random grating. The theory is exemplified by calculating the angular distribution of the mean intensity scattered from an ensemble of surfaces with similar statistical parameters