The optics of a water drop

Mie scattering and the Debye series

Philip Laven

Introduction

Rainbows and fogbows
    Lee diagrams
    Circular rainbows

Glories and the Brocken Spectre
    Understanding glories: Mie theory
    How are glories formed?
    Effects of droplet size

Introduction to Mie scattering

Introduction to the Debye series
    Analysing the corona
    Analysing the primary rainbow
    Analysing the secondary rainbow

Mathematical models of scattering
    Airy theory and rainbows
    Rayleigh scattering
    Diffraction by a sphere
    Modelling the corona
    Ray tracing
    Ray tracing with interference: Young v. Airy

Impulse response of a sphere
    Impulse response v. scattering angle

Scattering from a bubble in water
    Impulse response of a bubble

Resonant scattering from a spherical particle
    Analysis of resonant scattering

Scattering of Gaussian beams
    Numerical evaluation
    Selecting the calculation parameters
    Overflow problems

Scattering from a coated sphere
    Coated sphere: impulse response

Size of light source
    Variability of size of raindrops-1
    Variability of size of raindrops-2

Multiple wavelengths
    How many wavelengths are needed?
    Automatic selection of wavelengths

Wavelength and colour

Refractive index of water

Absorbing spheres

MiePlot program

Links
     Scientific papers related to this web site
     Publications on "Light & Color in Nature"