Sharp diffraction peaks from chaotic structures

Recently various models for spatially chaotic structures have been proposed. We study the diffraction patterns produced by plane chaotic waves incident on one-dimensional chaotic point scatterers. The spacing between the scatterers and the dynamics of the incident wave are given by a logistic map or standard map. We find a sharp diffraction peak when the incident dynamics is produced by the same map as the structure of the spatial configuration. The diffraction pattern is symmetric about the incident direction only if the map dynamics is invertible. Diffraction patterns with chaotic incident waves have a large signal-to-noise ratio and are well suited for pattern identification. We discuss possible applications to the scattering of microwaves from aperiodic structures. (c) 1997 American Institute of Physics.