Effects of surface roughness on light scattering by small particles

Roughness exists on almost all natural particle surfaces, such as spores, aerosols, cells, etc. In this paper, we study the effects of surface roughness on light scattering for spherical shaped particles. A 3D finite-difference time domain model is used to solve for all the optical properties of the scatterer. We will introduce a roughness parameter and show its effect on the light scattering properties. Our results show that surface roughness can indeed play an important role on the light scattering pattern under certain conditions. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.