Light scattering in porous materials: Geometrical optics and stereological approach

- Porous material has been considered from the point of view of stereology.
- Properties of a two-phase random mixture of solid material and air are considered.
- Light scattering in such materials has been described using geometrical optics.
- The inherent optical properties of such a porous material have been obtained.

Porous material has been considered from the point of view of stereology (geometrical statistics), as a two-phase random mixture of solid material and air. Considered are the materials having the refractive index with the real part that differs notably from unit and the imaginary part much less than unit. Light scattering in such materials has been described using geometrical optics. These two - the geometrical optics laws and the stereological approach - allow one to obtain the inherent optical properties of such a porous material, which are basic in the radiative transfer theory: the photon survival probability, the scattering phase function, and the polarization properties (Mueller matrix). In this work these characteristics are expressed through the refractive index of the material and the random chord length distribution. The obtained results are compared with the traditional approach, modeling the porous material as a pack of particles of different shapes.