So What is Scattering Anyway?

• Scattering is a random change in the direction of a photon due to the medium that it is travelling through.

Yeah but that's a boring explanation, let's see some animation.

• Basic Principle of Photon Scattering

  No Scattering: Photon Source and Detector

For optical photons, scattering goes as wavelength to the -4 power. In the case of blue photons compared to red photons, this means that blue photons are about 10 times more likely to get scattered than red photons. This is shown in the next animation.

Blue photons vs. Red photons

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