par Ingve Simonsen

We visually sense the world around us due to light being scattered from the objects that surround us. Most naturally occurring objects are not bounded by perfectly planar interfaces. Instead they are rough at some length scale. Traditionally, surface roughness has been viewed as an extra level of complication when analyzing optical systems. Today, however, surface disorder is often taken as an advantage for certain system due to their distinct optical properties (e.g. in solar cells). Moreover, recent technological advancesallow for the manufacturing of surface structures tailored towards given applications.

An adequate theoretical (and numerical) description of the optics of random rough surface has been a long-standing problem. It can traces its origin at least back to work by Sir Rayleigh, and it is still a very much vibrant (and interdisciplinary) research field.

In this talk we will review some of the effects that may take place when light is being scattered from a randomly rough surface. The main focus of the talk will be devoted to various multiple scattering phenomena, and their origins. In particular what will be addressed are : enhances backscattering, sattlite peaks, coherent effects in the second harmonic generation, and correlation functions. In the last part of the talk, we will address some applications where surface disorder plays a prominent role. A few such examples are designer surfaces, and remote sensing.

Corresponding author. e-mail : Ingve.Simonsen ntnu.no
[1] Light Scattering and Nanoscale Surface Roughness, A.A. Maradudin (ed.), (Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2007).
[2] I. Simonsen, A Random Walk Through Surface Scattering Phenomena : Theory and Phenomenology, arXiv:cond-mat/0408017.