The phases and amplitudes of all the elements of the scattering matrix for radiation scattered by microparticles are shown to be measurable by a technique which was inspired by the phase differential scattering method developed by Johnston et al. of the Experimental Pathology Group at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The present method synthesizes a laser beam from a superposition of two coherent beams in which a small frequency offset between perpendicular polarization components has been acoustooptically introduced. The heterodyne signal in the scattered radiation is used to detect the polarimetric null obtained by a variable phase compensator and linear polarizer placed in front of the scattered intensity detector. The reciprocity theorem is used to obtain a complementary set of data to completely determine all the elements of the matrix.

© 1990 Optical Society of America

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