A Hybrid Partial Coherence and Geometry Optics Model of Radiative Property on Coated Rough Surfaces

Thermal and optical engineering applications of electromagnetic wave scattering from rough surfaces include temperature measurement, radiation heating process, etc. Most of the surfaces have random roughness and are often with coating material different from the substrate. However, the understanding of radiative properties of coated rough surfaces is not well addressed at this point. This paper presented a novel hybrid partial coherence and geometry optics (HPCGO) model to improve the generic geometry optics (GO) prediction by incorporating a previously developed partial coherence reflectance equation. In this way, HPCGO expands the applicable region of GO model and largely reduces the computation time of integrating different wavelength results in the regular hybrid model that considers coherence effect only. In this study, the HPCGO model is first compared with the more rigorous Maxwell equations solvers, the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, and integral equation (IE) method. Then, the HPCGO model is applied to study the coherent effect of directional-hemispherical reflectance from coated rough surfaces. It is found the roughness of coated rough surface can cause partially coherent or noncoherent scattered light even if the incident light source is coherent. It also shows the reflected electromagnetic wave’s coherence effect reduces with increased coating thickness and surface roughness, besides the previously recognized incident wave-number bandwidth. The effect of reduce coherence in scattered wave is quantified. Finally a regime map, even limited in the roughness and coating thickness dimensionless parameter ranges, provides the region of validity of the HPCGO model. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4024466]