Angularly resolved backscattering of light from turbid suspensions of dielectric spheres

An analytic expression for the angular dependency of light backscattered from turbid suspensions of dielectric spheres that accounts for multiple-scattering effects is developed. The multiple-scattering model expresses backscattered light as a convolution of the phase function and a kernel representing the effects of forward scattering, multiplied by the optical thickness of the slab. Excellent agreement between Monte Carlo simulations and the analytic expressions is demonstrated for optical thicknesses of 0.1-4. The results are important for goniometric sizing measurements of biological cells and cellular organelles using elastically backscattered light. (C) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.