Data in this database are freely available under the request of citation of   this paper   and the  paper   in which the data were published.

WHAT DO WE MEASURE?

The main purpose of this section is to clarify the meaning of the scattering matrix elements tabulated in the database.

For convenience, we divide all scattering matrix elements (except F₁₁ itself) by F₁₁(θ), i.e., we consider F_ij(θ)/F₁₁(θ), with i,j=1 to 4 except for i=j=1 being θ the scattering angle. The values of F₁₁(θ) are normalized so that they are equal to 1 at θ= 30 degrees. The function F₁₁(θ), normalized in this way, is proportional to the flux of the scattered light for unpolarized incident light and called the phase function or scattering function in this database.

Click here if you want to know more on the normalization of the scattering matrix.

Also, for unpolarized incident light, the ratio -F₁₂/F₁₁(θ) is called the degree of linear polarization of the scattered light.