Simulation of enhanced backscattering of light by numerically solving Maxwell's equations without heuristic approximations

We report what we believe to be the first simulation of enhanced backscattering (EBS) of light by numerically solving Maxwell's equations without heuristic approximations. Our simulation employs the pseudospectral time-domain (PSTD) technique, which we have previously shown enables essentially exact numerical solutions of Maxwell's equations for light scattering by millimeter-volume random media consisting of micrometer-scale inhomogeneities. We show calculations of EBS peaks of random media in the presence of speckle; in addition, we demonstrate speckle reduction using a frequency-averaging technique. More generally, this new technique is sufficiently robust to permit the study of EBS phenomena for random media of arbitrary geometry not amenable to simulation by other approaches, especially with regard to extension to full-vector electrodynamics in three dimensions.