Determining the optical properties of light-diffusing systems using a photometric sphere

A facility based on a photometric sphere has been developed for determining the optical properties of metal nanoparticles in transparent matrices. A method for processing experimental data of light scattering spectroscopy and determining the efficiencies of light absorption and scattering is proposed based on a solution to the inverse problem of the theory of radiative transport in a scattering layer with the use of an analytical solution to the radiative transport equation by the spherical harmonics method. The proposed method has been tested on pentaerythritol tetranitrate-aluminum composites. The influence of parameter variation is analyzed, and a conclusion is drawn that the efficiencies of light absorption and scattering by nanoparticles can be correctly determined.