Optical Properties of Graphite and Absorption and Scattering Cross Sections for Graphite Grains

The data provided here are from the paper "Graphite Revisited" (Draine 2016, ApJ accepted). Please cite that paper if you use these data. The data are of two type:

Dielectric functions

Draine (2016) presents a new estimate for the dielectric tensor of graphite, from submm to X-ray energies. The files below present dielectric functions, and cross sections for spherical and spheroidal grains calculated using these dielectric functions:


Cross sections for single-crystal graphite spheres

Draine (2016) has carried out accurate DDA calculations (using DDSCAT 7.3.1), with full treatment of the anisotropic dielectric tensor of graphite, for absorption and scattering by randomly-oriented single-crystal graphite spheres, for wavelengths from 0.1um to 10um. The results in these files were obtained by extrapolation to N=infinity from DDSCAT calculations with N_1=59278 and N_2=140408 dipoles. Results are given for selected values of aeff = radius of sphere.

Cross sections for single-crystal graphite spheroids

Draine (2016) has carried out accurate DDA calculations (using DDSCAT 7.3.1), with full treatment of the anisotropic dielectric tensor of graphite, for absorption and scattering by randomly-oriented graphite oblate spheroids (b/a=1.4; c axis parallel to the spheroid symmetry axis) for selected sizes, for wavelengths from 0.1um to 10um. The rsults in these files were obtained by extrapolation to N=infinity from DDSCAT calculations with N_1=60476 and N_2=131040 dipoles. Results are given for selected values of aeff = radius of equal-volume sphere.

Cross sections for turbostratic graphite spheres

Cross sections for turbostratic graphite spheroids

Scattering and absorption cross sections have been calculated for spheroids composed of turbostratic graphite, using Maxwell Garnett effective medium theory (method MG_1 in Draine 2016) to estimate the effective dielectric function for turbostratic graphite material. Efficiency factors Q_abs=C_abs/pi*aeff^2, Q_ext=C_ext/pi*aeff^2, and Q_sca=C_sca/pi*aeff^2, where aeff = radius of equal-volume sphere. Cross sections have been calculated using the spheroid code of Voshchinnikov & Farafanov (1993) plus approximations when size/wavelength is either very small or very large. Cross sections are calculated for 3 orientations (jori=1-3) of the spheroid symmetry axis "a" relative to the incident linearly-polarized plane wave:

Results are given for 169 sizes [log10(a/um) from -3.50 to 0.70] and 1009 wavelengths [log10(wave/um) from -1.04 to 4.00].
The files are in ascii, with the following structure:
Qabs, Qext, and Qsca are listed in the order used by Fortran, with first index varying most rapidly: e.g., Qabs(1,0,0), Qabs(2,0,0), Qabs(3,0,0), Qabs(1,1,0), Qabs(2,1,0), ... , Qabs(2,168,1008), Qabs(3,168,1008) Back to Bruce Draine's home page.