Light scattering of ultrafine silica particles by VUV synchrotron radiation

Vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) light scattering from ultrafine silica particles is studied with an aerosol instrument recently established at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) in Berkeley. Silica particles, size-selected by a differential mobility analyzer, are introduced into vacuum through a set of aerodynamic lenses to form a particle beam. The scattered photons from the crossing area of the VUV synchrotron beam and particle beam are detected with a rotatable VUV photon detector. The angular distributions of scattered photons (ADSP) originating from 70, 100, 200 nm diameter silica particles are measured with 145.9 and 118.1 nm synchrotron radiation. These angular distributions show strong forward scattering. The measured ADSPs are consistent with simulation of Mie scattering. The refractive indices of silica particles, 2.6 + 1.1i and 1.6 + 0.0001i for 118.1 and 145.9 nm, respectively, are obtained by fitting the measured ADSPs; the least average percentage deviations are 18% and 6%, respectively. The scattered fluxes at widely different wavelengths (visible versus VUV) also exhibit clear size sensitivity. Under comparable experimental conditions of photon fluxes and detection efficiencies, limits of particle size detection of 70 and 250 nm are obtained, respectively, when using 118.1 and 532 nm illumination. As anticipated, VUV scattering is a more sensitive probe for ultrafine particles, which will find application in detection of these ubiquitous species beyond the confines of a laboratory.