Initially devised by Mikhail Shneider and Richard Miles at Princeton University, coherent microwave scattering has become a valuable technique in applications ranging from photoionization and electron-loss rate measurements to trace species detection, gaseous mixture and reaction characterization, molecular spectroscopy, electron propulsion device characterization, standoff measurement of electron collision frequencies for momentum transfer through the scattered phase, and standoff measurement of local vector magnetic fields through magnetically-induced depolarization.