RAYLEIGH SCATTERING OF CONDENSED MATTER

Abstract

The scattering power S(λ) = Is/Id (Is, Id are the intensities of the scattered and the incident light) for visible light is investigated experimentally for ordinary glass, optical glass, water, and air. It is found that S(λ) for glass shows pronounced deviations from Rayleigh's 1/λ4 law, e.g., a relative maximum of S(λ) for λ = 5200 Å in the case of ordinary glass. A theory for the Rayleigh scattering of condensed matter is developed and compared with the ideas brought forward by Fürth and Humphreys-Owen in 1951. It is shown that the maxima of S(λ) observed by these authors and in the present work can be equally well derived from localized lattice imperfections or from the mosaic blocks considered by Fürth.