INTENSITY AND POLARIZATION OF LIGHT SCATTERED BY SOME PERMANENT GASES AND VAPORS

A light-scattering instrument has been developed and used to determine the polarization ratios and scattering powers of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, air, a 79.6% nitrogen-20.4% oxygen mixture, propane, butane, and dimethyl ether. Measurements were made with three types of incident light-unpolarized, horizontally plane polarized, and vertically plane polarized. Three methods were used to measure the polarization ratio for unpolarized incident light, ρu; two to measure that with vertically plane-polarized light, ρu; and one for horizontally polarized light, PA. Good agreement was obtained between experimental results and predictions from Rayleigh's theory of anisotropic scattering by small particles.