Deviation of white diffuse reflectance standards from perfect reflecting diffuser at visible and near-infrared spectral ranges

Abstract

10 pags., 8 figs., 3 tabs.-- Open Access funded by Creative Commons Atribution Licence 3.0 ; The assumption that the reflectance of white diffuse reflectance standards is identical to that of the perfect reflecting diffuser (PRD) allows these standards to be used to characterize reflectance or radiance factors of any surface at any irradiation/collection geometry simply by comparison. However, this assumption is only true within certain limits, and, for some applications, requirements may be out of those limits. PTB and IO-CSIC have studied the variation of the reflectance with respect to the bidirectional geometry for the four most typical white diffuse materials (barium sulfate, opal glass, ceramic and Spectralon), at in- A nd out-of plane geometries and at spectral range from 380 nm to 1700 nm. We have defined descriptors in order to more clearly quantify the spectral reflectance variation with the bidirectional geometries. The values obtained for these descriptors have been separately presented for the visible and near-infrared spectral ranges. In both spectral ranges, deviations of white diffuse reflectance standards with respect to the PRD were found, regarding both Lambertian behaviour and spectral constancy. The observed deviation from the BRDF is in general very large for high incidence and collection angles (reaching in many cases 20%). Therefore, it is not possible to assume Lambertianity in standards at those geometries when calibrating measuring systems. ; This article was written within the EMRP IND52 Project xDReflect 'Multidimensional reflectometry for industry'. The EMRP is jointly funded by the EMRP participating countries within EURAMET and the European Union. Part of the authors (Instituto de Óptica 'Daza de Valdés', CSIC) are also grateful to Comunidad de Madrid for funding the project SINFOTON-CM: S2013/MIT-2790.