Abstract

Static scalar light scattering^1,2 has, since long ago, proved to be very interesting and useful in many theoretical and practical fields, related to surface and particle suspension investigation. Vectorial approaches provide even more information on the sample characteristics. While most of the theories assume spherical particles, spheroids or gaussian random surfaces with low slopes, real samples do not satisfy in general those assumptions. Scalar (i.e. intensity) measurements are unable to detect this non-ideality. So the predicted values of particle or roughness size are biased. On the contrary, vectorial (i.e. polarization) measurements ^3,4,5,6 can provide ways to detect, identify and evaluate the shift from ideality (non spherical particules, porosity, high slopes...).

© 1996 Optical Society of America