Morphology-dependent resonances of spherical droplets with numerous microscopic...

Mishchenko, M., L. Liu, and D. W. Mackowski (2014), Morphology-dependent resonances of spherical droplets with numerous microscopic inclusions, Optics Letters, 39, 1701-1704.
Abstract: 

We use the recently extended superposition T-matrix method to study the behavior of a sharp Lorenz–Mie resonance upon filling a spherical micrometer-sized droplet with tens and hundreds of randomly positioned microscopic inclusions. We show that as the number of inclusions increases, the extinction cross-section peak and the sharp asymmetry-parameter minimum become suppressed, widen, and move toward smaller droplet size parameters, while ratios of diagonal elements of the scattering matrix exhibit sharp angular features indicative of a distinctly nonspherical particle. Our results highlight the limitedness of the concept of an effective refractive index of an inhomogeneous spherical particle.

Research Program: 
Radiation Science Program (RSP)