Abstract
We propose a new technique allowing the decomposition of the light- and heavy-ion elastic scattering amplitude into its barrier and internal wave components as defined by Brink and Takigawa. The method requires only minimum programming as it makes use of the reflection coefficients generated by any optical model code. Also, it can be applied to a wide range of potentials including folding model and model-independent potentials. The use and physical interest of the method are illustrated by applying it to a few representative examples ranging from α to heavy-ion scattering.