Characteristics measurement of extinction and refractive index of aerosol particles

A new method is proposed for the measurement of refractive index of aerosol by using a visibility meter(VM),an optical particle counter(OPC) and a micro pulse lidar(MPL).The extinction coefficient and ratio of extinction-to-backscatter are measured with a VM and micro pulse lidar,the number density distribution of aerosol particles is measured by an OPC with nominated radii.According to the Mie scattering theory,different distributions can be obtained with different refractive index for the same result measured by OPC.The variations of both extinction coefficient and ratio of extinctionto-backscatter can be calculated with different refractive index.The solution of refractive index can be decided according to the value of extinction coefficient and ratio of extinction-to-backscatter measured by VM and MPL measurement respectively.