Coherent backscattering of electromagnetic waves in random media

The single and multiple scattering regimes of electromagnetic waves in a disordered system with fluctuating permittivity are studied by numerical simulations of Maxwell's equations. For an array of emitters and receivers in front of a medium with randomly varying dielectric constant, we calculate the backscattering matrix from the signal responses at all receiver points j to electromagnetic pulses generated at each emitter point i. We show that the statistical properties of the backscattering matrix are in agreement with the recent experimental results for ultrasonic waves (AUBRY A. and DERODE A., Phys. Rev. Lett., 102 (2009) 084301) and light (POPOFF S. M. et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 104 (2010) 100601). In the multiple scattering regime the singular value distribution of the backscattering matrix obeys the quarter-circle law. Copyright (C) EPLA, 2012