Separating diffraction from scattering: the million-dollar challenge

Craig Bohren has offered a million-dollar prize to anyone who can devise a detector that accepts scattered light but rejects diffracted light. This challenge was examined from a theoretical perspective by considering the scattering of red light by a spherical droplet of water with diameter 20 µm. Illumination of the droplet by short pulses (e.g. a duration of 5 fs) could allow a detector to distinguish between light scattered by various mechanisms, such as diffraction, transmission, reflections and surface waves. Although such techniques would not satisfy the precise terms of the challenge, the time domain approach can deliver remarkable insights into the details of the scattering processes.