Particle sizing by inversion of the optical transform pattern

An inversion method is presented for recovering size information from the optical transform pattern for spherical particles. Comparisons are made with the Shifrin inversion method for two different types of particle-size distribution. For a monodispersed size distribution optical transform experiments reveal that the new method shows better capabilities in recovering information about the size and number of scatterers. Using a noise-free continuous distribution in a computer simulation, we found that the two methods are equally capable of recovering the form of the original distribution function. Then shot noise is simulated in the transform pattern, and it is shown that the new inversion method is less susceptible to error.