Abstract
A magnetostatic theory is presented for light scattering from surface spin waves in thin ferromagnetic films deposited on non-magnetic substrates. The calculations include multiple-reflection effects for the incident and scattered light beams, and these become important at film thicknesses which are comparable with or smaller than the optical penetration depth. The theory is applied to explain recent Brillouin scattering measurements for thin iron films on various substrates, including an enhancement observed in certain cases for the scattered intensity. Further applications of the theory to EuS films are also discussed.