What is Rayleigh scattering?
1 Answer
The scattering of light by particles in a medium, without a change in wavelength is called as Rayleigh Scattering.
Explanation:
Rayleigh scattering refers to the scattering of light off of the molecules of the air, and can be extended to scattering from particles up to about a tenth of the wavelength of the light. It is Rayleigh scattering of the molecules of the air which gives us the blue sky.
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Rayleigh scattering can be considered to be elastic scattering since the photon energies of the scattered photons is not changed. Scattering in which the scattered photons have either a higher or lower photon energy is called Raman scattering. Usually, this kind of scattering involves exciting some vibrational mode of the molecules, giving a lower scattered photon energy, or scattering off an excited vibrational state of a molecule which adds its vibrational energy to the incident photon.
