Light Scattering by Large Densely Packed Clusters of Particles

Abstract

AbstractWe review our results of numerical simulations of light scattering from different systems of densely packed irregular particles. We consider spherical clusters, thick layers and monolayers with realistic topologies and dimensions much larger than the wavelength of light. The maximum bulk packing density of clusters is 0.5. A numerically exact solution of the electromagnetic problem is obtained using the Discontinuous Galerkin Time Domain method and with application of high- performance computing. We show that high packing density causes light localization in such structures which makes an impact on the opposition phenomena: backscattering intensity surge and negative linear polarization feature. Diffuse multiple scattering is significantly reduced in the case of non-absorbing particles and near-field interaction results in a percolation-like light transport determined by the topology of the medium. With this the negative polarization feature caused by single scattering gets enhanced if compared to lower density samples. We also confirm coherent double scattering mechanism of negative polarization for light scattered from dense absorbing slabs. In this case convergent result for the scattering angle polarization dependency at backscattering can be obtained for a layer of just a few tens of particles if they are larger than the wavelength.