[ATM] Measuring scattered light off optical surfaces

[Dominic-Luc Webb]

I do not usually need to measure light scatter on optical surfaces
but in biochemistry/biophysics applications what I do is subtractive
procedure. I measure transmission or absorbance, and (in this case)
reflection. What is left over is scatter. I can use polarizers in my
biochemical work to measure scatter and could imagine they could be
used here as well, but the underlying principle could not be the
same. At the molecular level I am working at, I expect molecules in
solution to move around, thus depolarizing polarized light. This will
of course not happen with a rigid medium such as glass, etc. Perhaps
randomly scattered light from an optical surface also gets depolarized?

If you hunt around on topics relating to absorbance techniques in
biochemistry, you should be able to find some textbook examples of
light scatter measurements in which the detector was moved different
distances from a sample specifically in order to measure scatter.

Dominic-Luc Webb



On Mon, 8 Jan 2007, Tom Krajci wrote:

> What amateur techniques are used to quantitatively measure scattered light
> off optical surfaces?  I know of various go/no-go tests for evaluating
> quality of polish, but what about quantifying the amount of scatter of a
> polished surface, or an aluminized surface?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> -------------------------------------------
> Tom Krajci
> Cloudcroft, New Mexico
> http://overton2.tamu.edu/aset/krajci/
>
> Center for Backyard Astrophysics (CBA)
> http://cba.phys.columbia.edu CBA New Mexico
>
> American Association of Variable Star
> Observers (AAVSO): KTC http://www.aavso.org/
> -------------------------------------------
>
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