Monte Carlo simulation of photon transport in a randomly oriented sphere-cylinder scattering medium

A Monte Carlo simulation tool for simulating photon transport in a randomly oriented sphere-cylinder medium has been developed. The simulated medium represents a paper pulp suspension where the constituents are assumed to be mono-disperse micro-spheres, representing dispersed fiber fragments, and infinitely long, straight, randomly oriented cylinders representing fibers. The diameter of the micro-spheres is considered to be about the order of the wavelength and is described by Mie scattering theory. The fiber diameter is considerably larger than the wavelength and the photon scattering is therefore determined by an analytical solution of Maxwell’s equation for scattering at an infinitely long cylinder. By employing a Stokes–Mueller formalism, the software tracks the polarization of the light while propagating through the medium. The effects of varying volume concentrations and sizes of the scattering components on reflection, transmission and polarization of the incident light are investigated. It is shown that not only the size but also the shape of the particles has a big impact on the depolarization.