Ramsauer approach for light scattering on nonabsorbing spherical particles and application to the Henyey-Greenstein phase function

Appl Opt. 2012 Nov 10;51(32):7842-52. doi: 10.1364/AO.51.007842.

Abstract

We present a new method to study light scattering on nonabsorbing spherical particles. This method is based on the Ramsauer approach, a model known in atomic and nuclear physics. Its main advantage is its intuitive understanding of the underlying physics phenomena. We show that although the approximations are numerous, the Ramsauer analytical solutions describe fairly well the scattering phase function and the total cross section. Then this model is applied to the Henyey-Greenstein parameterization of the scattering phase function to give a relation between its asymmetry parameter and the mean particle size.