Abstract

This paper deals with numerical investigations of a beam propagating and scattering in discrete random media based on the radiative transfer theory. By assuming a monochrome, unpolarized, collimated normal incident laser beam with a finite beamwidth, we derive the Fourier-Bessel transport equation in the transformed domain. This equation is expanded in terms of 2-D spherical basis functions and solved using the eigenvalue-eigenvector technique. The beam-wave solution is obtained by taking the inverse Fourier-Bessel transformation of the solutions to this Fourier-Bessel transport equation. We calculate the complete beam-wave solutions for the transmitted and backscattered specific intensity as well as the power received by a receiver as functions of the receiver field of view, the asymmetric factor of the phase function $\left(\tilde{\mu }\right)$, the equivalent optical thickness of the medium (τ₀), the radial position of the receiver, and the ratio of the depth of the medium layer to the width of the incident beam. The results are compared with experimental data for the transmitted flux density and power of a laser beam passing through randomly distributed latex microspheres, and these results and data are found to be consistent with each other in the first-order scattering, multiple scattering, and diffusion regions.

© 1986 Optical Society of America