A Review of Elastic Light Scattering Theories

Mie scattering is an important tool for diagnosing microparticles or aerosol particles in technical or natural environments. Mie theory is restricted to spherical, homogeneous, isotropic and non-magnetic particles in a non-absorbing medium. However, as microparticles are hardly ever spherical or homogeneous, there is much interest in more advanced scattering theories. During recent decades, scattering methods for non-spherical and non-homogeneous particles have been developed and even some computer codes are readily available. Extension of Mie theory covers coated spheres, stratified spheres and clustered spheres. For homogeneous non-spherical particles such as spheroids, ellipsoids and finite cylinders, surface discretization methods have been developed. Scattering by inhomogeneous particles may be computed by volume discretization methods.