Optical properties of irregularly shaped particles

Abstract

The phase matrix of irregularly shaped randomly oriented large fractal particles is studied in the framework of the ray tracing approach for various refractive indices. The fractal particle model can be used for modelling local optical characteristics of various natural light scattering media with irregular particles, including oceanic water, crystalline clouds and solid aerosols. For nonabsorbing large particles the theory does not contain any fitting parameters except the refractive index of particles, which is either known (ice clouds) or has generally unknown distribution in a local volume of a scattering medium (dust aerosols and oceanic suspensions).