Diffraction of laser radiation by a plasma wave-the near field and far field limiting cases

Abstract

For the detection of plasma density fluctuations where the wavelength is too large for traditional Bragg scattering, two techniques have been suggested; phase scintillation and far forward scattering. It is shown in this paper that these techniques are not fundamentally different; they correspond respectively to near field and far field detection of electromagnetic radiation diffracted by the density fluctuations.