Full-field measurements of particle size distributions II: experimental comparison of the polarization ratio and scattered intensity methods

Abstract

Experimental results are presented for a technique capable of making full-field measurements of discrete particle size distributions with both a broadband polarization ratio technique and a broadband scattered power technique. The data indicate that individual particle sizing is more accurately done using scattered intensities than using polarization ratios because of the latter's sensitivity to particle shape or beam quality. This result is not readily apparent from the theory discussed in Part I [(Appl. Opt. 32, 7532 (1993)]. It is also shown that spatially resolved measurements of local size distributions require large numbers of particles or else the measurement accuracy is poor.