An accurate technique to record the angular distribution of backscattered light

We report on a new technique to record the angular distribution of light which is scattered from a (disordered) material around the backscattering direction. The technique is accurate over a large scanning range (500 mrad) which includes the exact backscattering direction, and the angular resolution is high (100 μrad). The technique is particularly suitable for the study of coherent backscattering from very strongly scattering random media, but it can be applied in any situation where the angular distribution of backscattered light is studied. It allowed us to measure for the first time the theoretical value of two of the enhancement factor in coherent backscattering.