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Now close the plot window (by clicking on the x on the right upper corner) and load example 2 using the select box, in the same way as you did for example 1.  The main window of MieCalc now looks like this:

In example 2,  we study the spectral dependence of the extinction and scattering efficiencies of silver particles. The optical constants (real and imaginary parts of the refractive index) change with wavelength (dispersion) and must be read in from a table given in the text area of the MieCalc's main window.

The parameter panel looks different from example 1. The parameters to be read  from the  table are listed separately.
"col= 1"  means that the respective parameter shall be read from column 1 of the table. Click on "Plot"  to obtain a beautiful surface-plasmon resonance ....

Now change refmed in the text field on the right side of the parameter panel from 1.33 to 1.5 and click on "Overplot" to see how the surface-plasmon resonance looks like for silver embedded in glass..

More interested in angular scattering?  Select the example "Angular scattering"  which is a little bit more time consuming. In this example, the scattered irradiance is computed as a function of scattering angle theta. Three cases are studied:

  1. the incident light is unpolarized (S11)
  2. the incident light is 100% linearly polarized, with polarization parallel to the scattering plane (SP)
  3. thie incident light is 100% linearly polarized, with polarization perpendicular (German:"senkrecht") to the scattering plane (SS).
Click on "Plot" to start the calculation. The plot window uses a linear axis scaling as the default. This is not very helpful in the present case, because the scattered irradiance is narrowly peaked in forward direction. You will essentially see nothing on the plot, unless you use a logarithmic scaling. From the  Axis menu of the plot window, select menu item "log y-axis".  Still the result looks somewhat confusing, because all lines are blue. Click on the label "sp" and edit the line style in the dialog box. Choose a solid line style and red color. In the same way, make "ss" a solid green line. Resize the plot window by "pulling" on the right lower corner. The result will look like this:

Note the feature at ca. 135-140 degrees. It's the rainbow angle! As you can see, polarization effects play an important effect for larger scattering angles, and are almost negligible in forward direction ("Fraunhofer diffraction").

Now, after having got an impression about the capabilities of MieCalc, you should study the documentation to learn more details.