Understanding lidar returns from complex dust mixtures

Lidar is a powerful tool for measuring the vertical profiles of aerosols. Dusts are irregularly-shaped particles with varied composition and strong index of refraction variations in the LWIR. We measure dust indices using ellipsometry and transmission through KBr pellets. Milling makes the ellipsometry data less dependent on incidence angle, and the results of measurements on milled materials agree with those from transmission measurements....