A Matlab user interface for optical properties of aerosols in internal and external mixture

Resumen

The purpose of the interface is to provide a simple platform to compute aerosol optical properties when its constitutive components are in external or internal mixture. External mixture means that there is no physical or chemical interaction between the particles of different components. Internal mixture consists of a component that is coated by a concentric shell of another material. The most common case is a light-absorbing carbon (soot) coated with a weakly absorbing material (sulphate). The user can select to combine the six basic components (soot, nitrate, sulphate, sea salt, dust and organic carbon) either in external mixture, internal mixture or a combination of both. The interface will output the absorption, extinction and scattering coefficients, as well as the single scattering albedo and the asymmetry parameter. The platform includes some predefined values for the key parameters describing the basic components: the refractive index, and the parameters of the lognormal size distribution. For those cases when there is not a general agreement in the Scientific Community, such as the refractive index of soot, the user can input its own parameters. The scattering is described with the Mie scattering theory. The main drawback of this approach is that aerosols are considered spherical. We plan to extend the platform for spheroid-like particles.