Use of the surface PSD and incident angle adjustments to investigate near specular scatter from smooth surfaces

The Rayleigh Rice vector perturbation theory has been successfully used for several decades to relate the surface power spectrum of optically smooth reflectors to the angular resolved scatter resulting from light sources of known wavelength, incident angle and polarization. While measuring low frequency roughness is relatively easy, the corresponding near specular scatter can be difficult to measure. This paper discusses using high incident angle near specular measurements along with profile generated surface power spectrums as a means of checking a near specular scatter requirement. The specification in question, a BRDF of 1.0 sr -1 at 2 mrad from the specular direction and at a wavelength of 1μm, is very difficult to verify by conventional scatter measurements. In fact, it is impractical to directly measure surface scatter from uncoated Zerodur because of its high bulk scatter. This paper presents profilometer and scatterometer data obtained from coated and uncoated flats at several wavelengths and outlines the analysis technique used to check this tight specification.