Optical measurements of chemically heterogeneous particulate surfaces

•We measure light scattering from mixtures of dark and bright powders.•Dark volcanic sand and bright salt or ferric sulfate are studied.•Negative linear polarization changes monotonically with mixing volume ratio.•High-contrast mixtures obey the Umov law.

We experimentally study light scattering by particulate surfaces consisting of two high-contrast materials. Using the Finnish Geodetic Institute field goniospectropolarimeter, reflectance and degree of linear polarization are measured in dark volcanic sand, bright salt (NaCl) and bright ferric sulfate (Fe2(SO4)3); and in mixtures of bright and dark components. We found that the light-scattering response monotonically changes with volume ratio of dark and bright components. In contrast to previous finding, we do not detect an enhancement of the negative polarization amplitude in two-component high-contrast mixtures. Two-component mixtures reveal an inverse correlation between maximum of their linear polarization and reflectance near backscattering, the so-called Umov effect. In log-log scales this inverse correlation takes a linear form for the dark and moderate-dark samples, while for the brightest samples there is a noticeable deviation from the linear trend.