Imaging and multiple scattering through media containing optically active particles

Abstract

This paper examines the behaviour of polarized light scattered by a medium containing small chiral spheroidal particles. We show that for single scattering the observed phenomena of optical activity may be interpreted in terms of an averaged Mueller matrix and describe how the degree of polarization is affected by such a medium. The polarization properties of multiply scattered light by chiral particles are considered through the use of Monte Carlo simulations. It is shown that the effects of chirality under multiple scattering can be interpreted as an order-preserving influence in a disordered system and that this influence can, in principle, be exploited for the purposes of imaging.     

Effect of electric field on light scattering by aqueous colloids of diamond and graphite

We present the results of our experimental investigation of light scattering by polydisperse colloids of diamond and graphite. The scattering is studied at a random orientation of particles and in an external radiofrequency electric field, which orients particles along the strength. The average dimensions of particles in both colloids are close to each other and comparable with the wavelength of the incident light. The shape of particles and the optical and electrooptical properties of diamond and graphite colloids are significantly different. We analyze the polarization components of scattered light energy when the light incident on the colloids is linearly polarized. We show that the quadrupole light scattering by isotropic diamond particles has the main effect on angular dependences of depolarization of scattered light. For light scattering by anisotropic graphite particles, the depolarization of scattered light is mainly determined by a particular feature of the dipole scattering of particles. It is shown that, in both colloids, the orientational order of particles considerably reduces the depolarization of light scattered by particles. We show that relative changes in the intensity and depolarization of scattered light, which depend on the scattering angle and polarization direction of light, as well as on the parameters of particles, can be used as a measure of electrooptical effects observed in colloids.     

切比雪夫雾霾粒子的紫外光散射偏振特性研究

雾霾天气已严重影响人们的日常生活,通过检测雾霾粒子的紫外光散射偏振特性可以有效分析雾霾成因。矿物粒子、灰尘粒子等雾霾颗粒均有小规模表面粗糙度的形态学特征,因此可用切比雪夫粒子作为模型分析。“日盲”紫外光与切比雪夫雾霾粒子相互作用发生散射,散射光偏振特性可反演切比雪夫雾霾颗粒物理性质(如粒子尺寸参数、复杂折射率、粒子形变、波纹参数)。采用紫外光单次散射模型和T矩阵方法,仿真分析切比雪夫雾霾粒子物理参数与散射光偏振特性(Stokes矢量和偏振度)之间的关系,结果表明：粒径对散射光Stokes矢量Is和Qs随散射角的变化趋势影响很大,粒子的粒径和复杂折射率虚部的变化会造成散射光偏振度随散射角的变化趋势的改变;具体分析散射角度为10°时,得到粒径对Is和Qs的数值影响最大,当粒径r<1 μm时,Is随粒径呈现抛物线趋势;切比雪夫粒子形变的增大,Is呈现先增大后减小的趋势。     

Optical characterization of metallic aerosols

Airborne metallic particulates from industry and urban sources are highly conducting aerosols. The characterization of these pollutant particles is important for environment monitoring and protection. Because these metallic particulates are highly reflective, their effect on local weather or regional radiation budget may also need to be studied. In this work, light scattering characteristics of these metallic aerosols are studied using exact solutions on perfectly conducting spherical and cylindrical particles. It is found that for perfectly conducting spheres and cylinders, when scattering angle is larger than 90° the linear polarization degree of the scattered light is very close to zero. This light scattering characteristics of perfectly conducting particles is significantly different from that of other aerosols. When these perfectly conducting particles are immersed in an absorbing medium, this light scattering characteristics does not show significant change. Therefore, measuring the linear polarization of scattered lights at backward scattering angles can detect and distinguish metallic particulates from other aerosols. This result provides a great potential of metallic aerosol detection and monitoring for environmental protection.     

Interference effects in backscattering of light by a layer of a discrete random medium

Multiple backscattering of light by a layer of a discrete random medium is considered. A brief derivation of equations for describing the coherent and incoherent components of scattered light is presented. These equations are solved numerically in the approximation of doubled scattering of light by a semi-infinite medium of spherical scatterers having a size comparable with the wavelength in order to study the effect of the properties of particles on the angular dependence of interference effects. Calculations show that the half-width of the interference peak decreases upon an increase in lateral scattering by particles and that the degree of polarization has a complex angular dependence on the properties of the particles. For an optically thin layer of the medium, the relations defining the interference peak half-width and the scattering angle upon extreme linear polarization as functions of the effective refractive index are given.     

偏振相移与相位共轭结合的散射光聚焦技术研究

散射介质对光的随机散射作用是制约其光学聚焦和成像的重要因素，光学相位共轭技术能够通过对散射光场共轭还原实现透过散射介质的光学聚焦和成像，其中散射光场相位的获取是共轭还原的核心。阐述了偏振相移的基本原理，将偏振相移与相位共轭技术相结合，设计了新的基于偏振相移的数字光学相位共轭系统。采用633 nm的HeNe激光器作为系统光源，毛玻璃作为散射介质开展散射光聚焦实验研究。实验结果表明:该装置能够成功实现透过散射介质的光学聚焦，其中聚焦点与背景光强的比值可达约400倍。     

A phase sensitive optical rotation measurement in a scattered chiral medium using a Zeeman laser

A novel circular polarized optical heterodyne interferometer using a Zeeman laser to measure optical rotation both in nonscattered and scattered chiral medium is proposed. A pair of correlated orthogonal circular polarized light waves of different temporal frequency propagating in the chiral medium at different speed is studied. This results in phase retardation between circular polarized light waves of which the phase difference is proportional to the optical rotation angle of a linear polarized light in a chiral medium. In the mean time, two orthogonal circular polarized light waves can be treated as a circular polarized photon pair that is able to reduce the scattering effect in a scattered chiral medium. Then the optical rotation angle can be measured in the scattering medium. In addition, a common-path configuration with respect to circular polarized light waves immune the background noise. This further improves the sensitivity on optical rotation measurement based on phase difference detection.     

Polarization visualization of scattering media with CW laser radiation

The method of polarization visualization of a multiply scattering medium containing macroinhomogeneities based on analysis of polarization spatial distribution of a scattered linearly polarized light is discussed. The treatment is based on statistical properties of the effective optical path distribution of scattered field components. The influence of media scattering properties and the geometry of the experiment on the inhomogeneity image contrast obtained with use of polarization degree and of normalized scattered intensity of radiation as visualization parameters are discussed, as well as spatial resolution achieved in these both cases. Using the results of theoretical analysis and of the experimental model, the relationship between the shapes of spatial distributions of polarization degree and the intensity of the scattered light is considered as a function of the position of the visualized object (an absorbing half-plane immersed in a plane layer of the scattering medium). The opportunities for enhancing the quality of the images formed in this way are also discussed.     

Polarized light-scattering measurements of dielectric spheres upon a silicon surface

The polarization of light scattered into directions out of the plane of incidence by polystyrene latex spheres upon a silicon substrate was measured for p -polarized incident light. The experimental data show good agreement with theoretical predictions for three sizes of spheres. These results demonstrate that the polarization of light scattered by particles can be used to determine the size of particulate contaminants on silicon wafers. Theoretical models, based on successive degrees of approximation, indicate that the mean distance of a particle from the surface is the primary determinant of the scattered light polarization for small out-of-plane scattering angles.     

非球形粒子散射光的去偏振特性研究

目标对入射偏振光的散射特性反映了目标的属性信息。在Rayleigh散射理论的基础上，通过单层非球形粒子对入射偏振光的散射数学模型，应用矢量传输方程来计算非球形粒子散射的Mueller矩阵元，求解散射介质的偏振度，讨论在不同介质层厚度、粒子半径和探测角的条件下，非球形粒子散射光去偏振度的变化特性，给出了模拟仿真结果。该方法为研究目标的内部结构、厚度和粗糙度等特征以及目标的探测和识别提供了一种新的途径。     

Propagation of polarized light in media with large discrete inhomogeneities

An approximate analytical method of solution of the vector radiative-transfer equation for an optically isotropic medium with large-scale inhomogeneities is proposed. The method is based on an assumption about the distinct anisotropy of single scattering. The method was used to calculate the polarization characteristics of light multiply scattered in a monodisperse medium with large spherical particles.     

降雨粒子的无线紫外光散射特性

紫外光与降雨粒子相互作用发生散射,散射光特性改变能够反映降雨粒子的相关物理特性（如粒子尺寸参数、浓度、形态）,因此研究粒子的物理参数对散射光特性的影响对有效提高光谱法定量探测降水的精度有很大意义。由于雨滴在非球形降水粒子中具有代表性,以群雨滴粒子为例,采用T矩阵理论,利用紫外光直视和非直视单次散射模型,分析了入射光波长、群雨滴粒子形态、降雨强度、粒径大小与散射光强之间的关系。并用蒙特卡洛方法仿真分析了非球形群雨滴粒子在不同降雨强度和粒径下散射角与散射光强之间的关系,以及降雨环境中的风切变对紫外光散射特性的影响。通过理论及仿真分析,得到了不同群雨滴粒子形态下的路径损耗,不同降雨强度、风切变率和粒径下的散射光强分布。仿真结果表明：在紫外光直视与非直视通信方式下,降雨环境中的通信质量比晴天条件下的通信质量差,即路径损耗增大。当粒径分布已知时,随着降雨强度的增大,衰减系数增大,路径损耗增加,且直视通信方式的路径损耗比非直视降低7 dB左右。随着降雨强度、风切变率和粒子粒径的增大,散射光强曲线整体呈下降趋势,其中,降雨强度的变化对散射光强分布影响程度最大。相同通信距离时,不同降雨强度下的紫外光散射光强分布均随着散射角的增大而减小,当散射角继续增大到90°时,有效散射体体积逐渐减小,接收到的光子能量减小,暴雨中的散射光强衰减程度最大。相同降雨强度下考虑风切变时,相比较无风时的路径损耗增大5 dB左右。除此之外,还研究了椭球形和切比雪夫形粒子对紫外光散射光强的影响,结果表明当粒子粒径分布相同时,椭球形粒子的散射光强衰减较广义切比雪夫形粒子大。根据散射粒子的散射光强分布以及路径损耗能够区分雨滴粒子是否由相同粒径及形态组成,为粒子测量提供理论基础。分析降水中群雨滴粒子的光散射特性,为提高光谱法评估降水衰减的数值模拟方面提供理论依据,为光学技术在探测识别降水现象等气象领域的广泛应用提供了设计参考。     

Spectrum of secondary electrons emitted during the nuclear β<Superscript>–</Superscript>-decay of the tritium atom

The depolarization of multiply scattered light in a disordered system of resonant dielectric Mie particles is studied. It is shown that the depolarization length of circularly polarized light under the first Kerker condition can be more than an order of magnitude larger than the transport length. Such a slow decay of circular polarization in a multiply scattering medium results in the enhancement of mesoscopic fluctuations of the transmission coefficient. The wavelength dependence of the variance of the transmission coefficient near the first Kerker point has a quasiresonant character. It is demonstrated that the second Kerker condition under which the forward scattering vanishes is satisfied with an increase in the refractive index. The depolarization lengths of circularly and linearly polarized light calculated for this case are minimal and almost coincide with the mean free path.     

Polarisation de la lumière diffusée par des particules agrégées fractales

Some of the dust particles present in the solar system are likely to be aggregates. The study of polarization of the light scattered by such aggregated particles is performed for the six main formation processes. The analysis of the results shows that an irregular and fluffy structure of the particles allows a better understanding of the light scattering observations.     

球形雾霾粒子的紫外光散射偏振特性研究

在我国经济社会快速发展的同时,雾霾天气成为了突出的环境问题,雾霾粒子的测量非常重要。偏振紫外光与大气雾霾粒子发生散射后,散射光偏振状态(Stokes矢量以及偏振度)的改变能反映雾霾粒子的相关物理特性(粒径、复杂折射率等)。基于Mie散射理论建立了紫外光雾霾球形粒子直视和非直视单次散射模型,研究了单个球形粒子和链状结构球形粒子物理特性的改变对散射光偏振状态的影响,并用蒙特卡洛仿真分析已知粒径分布的雾霾粒子浓度对散射光偏振状态的影响。结果表明：针对单个球形粒子,随着粒子粒径的增大Stokes矢量中散射光光强(I_s)随之增强,粒子复折射率虚部为先增大后较小,偏振度也是在不断增大,且复折射率虚部较小时,偏振度增加趋势快;对于粒径分布不变的雾霾粒子,随着粒子的浓度增加,雾霾粒子的散射系数、消光系数和吸收系数均呈线性增加,但是I_s先增大后减小。针对链状球形粒子,随着粒子个数的增加,I_s均呈现增大的趋势,且偏振度可用于区分链状球形粒子是否由相同球形粒子组成; 相同球形粒子组成链状结构中,I_s随着粒子数量的增加而线性增大,偏振度不改变;不同球形粒子组成的链状结构,I_s以及偏振度的变化趋势可以区分粒子物理特性。     

A Monte Carlo approach for the calculation of polarized light: application to an incident narrow beam

Monte Carlo approaches to compute multiple scattering of polarized light are examined. A Backward Monte Carlo (BMC) method is developed to solve the Stokes vector of the multiple scattered light for an inhomogeneous scattering medium with boundaries. A generalized form of the BMC method in vector notation is proposed. This method can determine the scattered light with sufficient accuracy in both intensity and polarization compared to the same calculation using the doubling-adding method for a plane parallel medium.For application to a narrow incident beam and an inhomogeneous medium, a modified BMC method is developed, borrowing a concept from the Forward Monte Carlo (FMC) method for the first scattering events. Furthermore, a modification of the total scattering matrix, i.e., the combination of the derived scattering matrix with its time inverse, is discussed. This BMC method can be used successfully for model calculations of lidar and other laser measurements of polarized light.     

The effect of the optical anisotropy of scattering media on the polarization state of scattered light

The effect of the optical anisotropy of scattering media on the polarization state of scattered light is studied. The study is performed using a simple polarization method based on the comparison of the spectral composition of the co-and cross-polarized components of transmitted light measured for samples differently oriented with respect to the plane of polarization of probe linearly polarized light. The experimental results obtained are interpreted theoretically in terms of ordinary methods used in optics of birefringent media. Using rat skin as an example, it is shown that surface tissues can be characterized by a high degree of orientational order of the local optical axis of a medium within large areas (with a size of 5 mm or more), which manifests itself in macroscopic optical measurements. In such measurements in the spectral range 550–700 nm, whole rat skin behaves as a partially depolarized phase plate with a difference between the principal refractive indices Δn ≈ 0.00023.     

T-matrix approach to calculating circular polarization of aggregates made of optically active materials

Optical activity is a typical property of the biological materials where left-handed amino-acids and right-handed carbohydrates dominate (so called homochirality). Observationally, optically active materials reveal themselves through the circular polarization in the light they scatter. Thus, circular polarization produced by the optically active particles can serve as a biomarker. It is known that biological (e.g. colonies of bacteria) and pre-biological (e.g. dust in comets) particles often have a complex structure that can be modeled presenting them as aggregates of small monomers. This motivated the development of the T-matrix code presented in this paper, which enables calculation of the scattering matrix - including circular polarization - of the light scattered by aggregated optically active particles. The code can be used for modeling the light scattering by biological objects (e.g. colonies of bacteria, blood cells) and for interpretation of the circular polarization produced by the cosmic dust that contains (pre)biological organic, e.g. comet dust or planetary aerosols.     

颗粒溶液颗粒尺寸及浓度的差分偏振弹性散射光谱在线分析方法

偏振弹性散射光谱技术的基本原理为在偏振光入射条件下,根据出射光的偏振特性不同可以筛选出浅表层组织的单次散射光信息和深层组织的漫散射光信息。该研究的创新点在于将这种方法应用于颗粒溶液检测,目的是在颗粒溶液原始状态下实现对颗粒尺寸及浓度的同时检测。设计了一个共轴笼式光学系统,测量了聚苯乙烯微球颗粒溶液某一角度的背向散射信号,通过控制入射端和收集端偏振片的偏振方向获得了颗粒溶液的偏振平行光谱与偏振垂直光谱,两者之差即偏振差分光谱对应颗粒的单次散射信息,将该单次散射信息与Mie散射数据库进行比对获得颗粒的尺寸,然后在颗粒尺寸作为已知的条件下进一步分析偏振垂直光谱,将该垂直光谱对应的颗粒溶液的漫散射信息代入光漫散射下的近似表达式拟合得到颗粒的浓度信息。将实验结果与样品提供值进行了比对,并进一步分析了在获取颗粒数浓度时,颗粒直径的方差分布对结果的影响,最终验证了该实验方法的可行性。该方法的潜在应用包括对标准颗粒制造厂商的产品在线检测以及对牛奶制品中脂肪和蛋白质的浓度检测研究。