Abstract

Scattering of light by obscurants such as smoke particles has both civilian and military applications. Knowledge of the phase function or angular scattering pattern of the smoke is of great importance in the computation of radiative transfer in a smoke cloud as well as in characterizing the smoke particles. In order to calculate the phase function of a smoke particle, the size, shape, and complex index of refraction of the particle must be known. Once the phase function of a smoke cloud is known, the scattering corrections to measured attenuation coefficients may be computed. Since the size, shape and complex index of refraction of volatile and evolving smokes are hard to measure, measurements of the phase function of a smoke cloud will provide some information on particle properties such as size and shape as well as characeterize the scattering process.

© 1983 Optical Society of America