EFFECTIVE-MEDIUM PREDICTIONS OF ABSORPTION BY GRAPHITIC CARBON IN WATER DROPLETS

Effective medium theories are valuable tools that can provide effectiv e refractive indices of composite media whose constituents are much sm aller than the wavelength of the illuminating radiation. Extended theo ries have been developed to remove this limitation on the constituent size. Although these extended theories are not derived without additio nal limitations, useful regions of applicability do exist. We examine an extended effective-medium approximation and show that its predicted absorption efficiencies obtained agree well with exact theoretical re sults obtained for a naturally occurring system of interest, water dro plets containing carbon inclusions.