Wideband microwave measurements of the extinction cross section---Experimental techniques

In English This paper describes the development of a method to determine the extinction cross section for a very large bandwidth in the microwave region.
The method is based on measurements of the radar cross section in the forward direction to calculate the extinction cross section for the frequency range 2.5,38 GHz. The method is applicable to samples of arbitrary shape and composition and can also be used for polarimetric measurements. Coherent background subtraction is used to remove the contribution from antenna to antenna coupling. Time domain gating is employed to increase the sensitivity. Different calibration methods are discussed. The efficiency of the background subtraction and the accuracy of the measurements are estimated.