An extension of the Mueller scattering matrix to nonlinear light scattering

✍ Scribed by Yaoming Shi; W.M. McClain; R.A. Harris

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1993
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 416 KB
• Volume: 205
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0009-2614
• DOI: 10.1016/0009-2614(93)85172-k

✦ Synopsis

We present a new method of analyzing the polarization dependence of nonlinear light scattering (2 in, 1 out), which generalizes the 4x4 Mueller matrix used in linear scattering. We apply it to the case of an isotropic ensemble of anisotropic scatterers, obtaining a "super-Mueller matrix" of dimension 4 x 4 x 4. Limiting ourselves to coplanar scattering, we show that two subsets of the elements of this matrix have properties closely analogous to properties found in the liiear Mueller matrix; namely, ( 1) sensitivity to the helicity of the scatterer, and (2) sensitivity to imaginary quantities not arising from the complex vector potential of the light; namely, the damping constant, retardative interactions, and an external magnetic field. These elements are all charati terized by an odd number of diagonal intcasity modulation indices.