Light-scattering intensity fluctuations in microdroplets containing inclusions

A prominent characteristic of the Light scattered from a microparticle containing inclusions is a fluctuation in the intensity that is due to the changing positions of the inclusions with respect to each other and the host droplet. We calculate the magnitude of these fluctuations for a host sphere containing a single eccentrically located spherical inclusion and experimentally measure the fluctuation amplitudes for host spheres containing multiple inclusions. We find that, for sufficiently small single inclusions, the amplitude of the scattering fluctuations increases approximately linearly with the area of the inclusion. For multiple inclusions, the fluctuation amplitude increases with concentration with an approximate power-law dependence. (C) 1997 Optical Society of America.