The pollution of the environment with microplastics in general, and in particular, the contamination of our drinking water and other food items, has increasingly become the focus of public attention in recent years. In order to better understand the entry pathways into the human food chain and thus prevent them if possible, a precise characterization of the particles concerning their size and material is indispensable. Particularly small plastic particles pose a special challenge since their material can only be determined by means of large experimental effort. In this work, we present a proof of principle experiment that allows the precise determination of the plastic type and the particle size in a single step. The experiment combines elastic light scattering (Mie scattering) with inelastic light scattering (Raman scattering), the latter being used to determine the plastic type. We conducted Monte Carlo simluations for the elastically scattered light for different kinds of plastics in a microfluidic cuvette which we could reproduce in the experiment. We were able to measure the Raman signals for different microplastics in the same measurement as the elastically scattered light and thereby determine their material. This information was used to select the appropriate Monte Carlo simulation data and to assign the correct particle size to different materials with only one calibration measurement.

In this paper, we demonstrate digital holographic imaging through a 27-m-long fog tube filled with ultrasonically generated fog. Its high sensitivity makes holography a powerful technology for imaging through scattering media. With our large-scale experiments, we investigate the potential of holographic imaging for road traffic applications, where autonomous driving vehicles require reliable environmental perception in all weather conditions. We compare single-shot off-axis digital holography to conventional imaging (with coherent illumination) and show that holographic imaging requires 30 times less illumination power for the same imaging range. Our work includes signal-to-noise ratio considerations, a simulation model, and quantitative statements on the influence of various physical parameters on the imaging range.

We present a method to determine the speckle properties of front projection screens. Seven different screens are investigated in a backscattering geometry for $808\mathrm{nm}$ light. The speckle contrast reduction that results from polarization scrambling and reduced temporal coherence is modeled for the case of volume scattering in the screens. For this purpose, the screen’s volume scattering path length distributions and depolarization characteristics are determined. This is done via a streak camera setup to measure the temporal broadening of ultrashort $50\mathrm{fs}$ light pulses scattered in the screens. We show that it is essential to properly select a projection screen with large volume roughness in order to achieve low speckle contrast values for moderate illumination bandwidths.

This paper discusses different strategies for color prediction and matching. Although many groups use the two-flux model (i.e., the Kubelka–Munk theory or its extensions), we introduce a solution of the P N approximation for the radiative transfer equation (RTE) with modified Mark boundaries for the prediction of the transmittance and reflectance of turbid slabs with or without a glass layer on top. To demonstrate the capabilities of our solution, we have presented a way to prepare samples with different scatterers and absorbers where we can control and predict the optical properties and discussed three color-matching strategies: the approximation of the scattering and absorption coefficient, the adjustment of the reflectance, and the direct matching of the color value L ∗ a ∗ b ∗ .

While 3D direct laser writing is a technique with growing popularity, there is little information about the quality of custom-made optical scatterers in current literature. The present work investigates a 3D direct laser writing system in view of its capability of producing micron scaled scatterers. Angular resolved scattering measurements on these scatterers are compared to numerical and analytical simulations proving the feasibility to produce elementary shaped particles with almost ideal shapes. Possible promising applications of these particles as scattering phantoms for biological samples are examined. Without the need for templates and molds, and a production cycle of less than a day, this method is ideally suited for the rapid prototyping of particle designs.

In this work, the image formation in a confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM) is investigated for custom-made multi-cylinder phantoms. The cylinder structures were fabricated using 3D direct laser writing and consist of parallel cylinders with radii of 5 and 10 $\mathsf{\mu }\mathrm{m}$ for the respective multi-cylinder phantom, with overall dimensions of about $200\times 200\times 200 \mathsf{\mu }{\mathrm{m}}^3$. Measurements were performed for different refractive index differences and by varying other parameters of the measurement system, such as pinhole size or numerical aperture (NA). For theoretical comparison, the confocal setup was implemented in an in-house developed tetrahedron-based and GPU-accelerated Monte Carlo (MC) software. The simulation results for a cylindrical single scatterer were first compared with the analytical solution of Maxwell’s equations in two dimensions for prior validation. Subsequently, the more complex multi-cylinder structures were simulated using the MC software and compared with the experimental results. For the largest refractive index difference, i.e., air as the surrounding medium, the simulated and measured data show a high degree of agreement, with all the key features of the CLSM image being reproduced by the simulation. Even with a significant reduction in the refractive index difference by the use of immersion oil to values as low as 0.005, a good agreement between simulation and measurement was observed, particularly with respect to the increase in penetration depth.