L. Kolokolova et Bas. Gustafson, Scattering by inhomogeneous particles: microwave analog experiments and comparison to effective medium theories, J QUAN SPEC, 70(4-6), 2001, pp. 611-625
Citations number
30
Categorie Soggetti
Spectroscopy /Instrumentation/Analytical Sciences
Journal title
JOURNAL OF QUANTITATIVE SPECTROSCOPY & RADIATIVE TRANSFER
It is common practice to use effective medium theories (EMT) to estimate av
erage, "effective" optical constants of inhomogeneous materials. A variety
of EMTs were developed for different internal structures of the medium and
for a variety of shapes, size distributions and physical properties of the
inhomogeneities. The most popular EMTs (Maxwell Garnett, Bruggeman, Looyeng
a, etc.) consider inhomogeneities that are much smaller than the wavelength
. The so-called extended EMTs were developed to find effective optical cons
tants in the case of inhomogeneities comparable and slightly larger than th
e wavelength. This paper compares angular distribution and wavelength depen
dence of intensity and polarization of scattered light obtained from calcul
ations using the most popular EMTs and extended EMTs with the results of mi
crowave analog measurements at the microwave facilities of the University o
f Florida. We simulated the light scattering by organic grains with silicat
e inclusions of size parameter x = 0.075 ( approximate to 0.01 mum), 0.60 (
approximate to 0.1 mum), and 1.24 ( approximate to 0.2 mum), The conclusio
n is that for inclusions of a small size and for a small volume fraction of
them in the mixture all EMTs yield similar results and show reasonable agr
eement with experimental results. The accuracy is better for the angular de
pendencies of the intensity and of the polarization of the scattered light
than for their wavelength dependencies. For inhomogeneities comparable and
larger than the wavelength extended EMTs work better but for smaller inclus
ions non-extended EMTs show more accurate results. Large volume fractions o
f the inclusions in the mixture ( > 10%) essentially reduce the accuracy of
the results obtained with EMTs. Based on our study we do not recommend to
use EMTs in the back-scattering domain and at the scattering angles 30 degr
ees < theta < 70 degrees. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. Ail rights reserve
d.