the purpose of this project create and validate a highly sensitive and accurate polar nephelometer for aerosol optical closure studies.

The goal of this project is to use this polar nephelometer to obtain the angular distribution of scattered light (phase functions) for various types of aerosol. We intend to use this instrument in conjunction with the BBCES and PAS systems to conduct optical closure studies on black carbon, brown carbon, organic, aged organic, and ambient aerosol.

The contents of this project currently contains scripts for the research project. These scripts perform many important functions. Some scripts are dedicated to image evaluation techniques for the purpose of obtaining fast phase functions from averaged images,these scripts test the accuracy and speed of the image evaluation processes for potential implementation into the measurement and automation software written in LabView. Some scripts are dedicated to the instrument validation, comparing the acquired phase functions to theoretically calculated results. Some scripts are dedicated to optical retrievals such as determining the aerosol refractive index and size distribution via Chi minimization or other statistical methods.

Thank you for participating in moving this project forward. Lets collectively make significant strides on this project to ensure that this instrument is the best instrument in Dr. Geoffrey Smith's laboratory!

Austen K. Scruggs, scruggs36mobile@gmail.com Sun Mingrui, Mingrui.Sun@uga.edu