The plasma in the auroral ionosphere may be considered as a flowing turbulent fluid and the radar auto-correlation function (ACF), calculated from received radar signals, is used to derive turbulence characteristics, such as diffusion coefficients and correlation times. Artificial backscatter generated by the Troms¿ heater has been diagnosed in this way using the CUTLASS HF radars. Turbulence characteristics were extracted from the ACFs using the method of Villain et al. <1996> for naturally occurring irregularity backscatter. In this study, it was found that the distribution of diffusion coefficients for artificially generated backscatter centered on a value that was about an order of magnitude less than that corresponding to the return from naturally occurring irregularities. Also, the modal correlation length value was about twice that corresponding to the natural case.