Characterization of aerosol scattering and absorption properties is essential to accurate radiative transfer calculations in
the atmosphere. Applications of this work include remote sensing of aerosols, corrections for aerosol distortions in
satellite imagery of the surface, global climate models, and atmospheric beam propagation. Here we demonstrate
successful instrument development at the Laboratory for Aerosols, Clouds and Optics at UMBC that better characterizes
aerosol scattering phase matrix using an imaging polar nephelometer (LACO-I-Neph) and enables measurement of
spectral aerosol absorption from 200 nm to 2500 nm. The LACO-I-Neph measures the scattering phase function from
1.5° to 178.5° scattering angle with sufficient sensitivity to match theoretical expectations of Rayleigh scattering of
various gases. Previous measurements either lack a sufficiently wide range of measured scattering angles or their
sensitivity is too low and therefore the required sample amount is prohibitively high for in situ measurements. The
LACO-I-Neph also returns expected characterization of the linear polarization signal of Rayleigh scattering. Previous
work demonstrated the ability of measuring spectral absorption of aerosol particles using a reflectance technique
characterization of aerosol samples collected on Nuclepore filters. This first generation methodology yielded absorption
measurements from 350 nm to 2500 nm. Here we demonstrate the possibility of extending this wavelength range into the
deep UV, to 200 nm. This extended UV region holds much promise in identifying and characterizing aerosol types and
species. The second generation, deep UV, procedure requires careful choice of filter substrates. Here the choice of
substrates is explored and preliminary results are provided.
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