ON THE INFORMATION-CONTENT OF THE LIGHT BACKSCATTERING AND TRANSMITTANCE CURVES IN AEROSOLS

Propagation of laser light in droplet aerosol media was studied numeri cally and experimentally. In optically tenuous aerosols the backscatte ring signal intensity is much weaker than the transmittance, but exhib its a specific substructure and is very sensitive to optical propertie s of aerosols and their size. Measurements show an excellent agreement of the experimental and theoretical curves for single scattering cond itions. In optically dense aerosol media with optical depths of the or der of unity and above, the backscattered light-flux intensity becomes comparable with the transmitted light-flux intensity. Experimental da ta indicate that this intensity enhancement is dominated by multiple s cattering and can provide important information regarding the backscat ter-to-extinction signal ratio in various aerosol media. (C) 1997 Else vier Science Ltd.