Maxwell-Garnett mixing rule in the presence of multiple scattering: Derivation and accuracy

Pierre Mallet (1, 2) , Charles-Antoine Guérin (2) , Anne Sentenac (2)

1 ONERA - The French Aerospace Lab [Toulouse]
2 FRESNEL - Institut FRESNEL

We give a rigorous and original derivation of the Maxwell-Garnett mixing rule in the dynamical regime for a composite dielectric random medium with small spherical inclusions. For certain configurations of scatterers, we show that contrarily to the common belief, the Maxwell-Garnett formula can remain very accurate at a high concentration of scatterers and incorporate multiple-scattering effects as well as attenuation of the mean field. We provide a realistic numerical example for which this is the case.

Domaines: Physique [physics]

Pierre Mallet, Charles-Antoine Guérin, Anne Sentenac. Maxwell-Garnett mixing rule in the presence of multiple scattering: Derivation and accuracy. Physical Review B: Condensed Matter and Materials Physics (1998-2015), 2005, 72 (1), pp.014205. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevB.72.014205⟩. ⟨hal-00080462⟩