Retrieval of fractal dimension and size distribution of non-compact soot aggregates from relative intensities of multi-wavelength angular-resolved light scattering

A new technique is developed to retrieve the fractal dimension and size distribution of soot aggregates simultaneously from the relative intensities of multi-wavelength angular-resolved light scattering. Compared with other techniques, the main advantage of this method is its independence of knowing complex refractive index, number density of aggregate, fractal prefactor and primary particle diameter. The forward light scattering procedure of soot aggregate is described by Rayleigh-Debye-Gans polydisperse fractal aggregate (RDG-PFA) scattering theory, and the retrieval process is performed by using the covariance matrix adaption-evolution strategy algorithm (CMA-ES). Three different measurement models, i.e. absolute scattering and transmittance, absolute scattering, relative scattering (RS), are investigated in present research. Numerical experiments have been performed to test the feasibility of the CMA-ES algorithm. Combined with the multi-wavelength RDG-PFA strategy, the retrieval accuracy of soot aggregate size distribution is proved to be more effectively by using the RS model. Satisfactory results under 10% Gaussian measurement noise have demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed method.