Abstract

Scattering of light by a single-layered sphere is investigated in the limit of a thin shell. In particular, the contribution of the shell (acting as a perturbation) to the scattering is separated out, thus facilitating a greater insight into the nature of its effect. This is illustrated by the application of the analytic expressions to the case of absorption of visible light (0.5 μm) by water droplets contaminated with graphitic carbon (soot) in the atmosphere. The relevance of this investigation to the interpretation of fluorescence intensity data from dye-coated spheres is also discussed.

© 1985 Optical Society of America