Concept of the equiphase sphere for light scattering by nonspherical dielectric particles

We introduce the concept of the equiphase sphere for light scattering by nonspherical dielectric particles. This concept facilitates the derivation of a simple analytical expression for the total scattering cross section of such particles. We tested this concept for spheroidal particles and obtained a bound on the minor-to-major axis ratio for the valid application of this technique. We show that this technique yields results that agree well with the rigorous numerical solution of Maxwell's equations obtained with the finite-difference time-domain method. The new technique has the potential to be extended to the study of light scattering by arbitrarily shaped convex dielectric particles. (C) 2004 Optical Society of America