Light scattering from particles located under a rough dielectric layer.

A discussion is presented of the effect of roughness on the detectability of subsurface particles by means of the light-scattering method. We have studied the scattering of light by calibrated spheres located under a slightly rough dielectric surface both experimentally and theoretically. In our experiments, the scattering from slightly rough layers with nonresonant particles was dominated by the roughness, and the scattering diagram did not bear any discernible indications of the spheres.