In physics, optical depth or optical thickness is the natural logarithm of the ratio of incident to transmittedradiant power through a material, and spectral optical depth or spectral optical thickness is the natural logarithm of the ratio of incident to transmitted spectral radiant power through a material. Optical depth is dimensionless, and in particular is not a length, though it is a monotonically increasing function of optical path length, and approaches zero as the path length approaches zero. The use of the term "optical density" for optical depth is discouraged. In chemistry, a closely related quantity called "absorbance" or "decadic absorbance" is used instead of optical depth: the common logarithm of the ratio of incident to transmitted radiant power through a material, that is the optical depth divided by ln 10.
Mathematical definitions
Optical depth
Optical depth of a material, denoted, is given by: where
Φei is the radiant flux received by that material;
Φet is the radiant flux transmitted by that material;
Optical depth measures the attenuation of the transmitted radiant power in a material. Attenuation can be caused by absorption, but also reflection, scattering, and other physical processes. Optical depth of a material is approximately equal to its attenuation when both the absorbance is much less than 1 and the emittance of that material is much less than the optical depth: where
Φet is the radiant power transmitted by that material;
Φeatt is the radiant power attenuated by that material;
Φei is the radiant power received by that material;
Φee is the radiant power emitted by that material;
T = Φet/Φei is the transmittance of that material;
ATT = Φeatt/Φei is the attenuance of that material;
l is the thickness of that material through which the light travels;
α is the attenuation coefficient or Napierian attenuation coefficient of that material at z,
and if α is uniform along the path, the attenuation is said to be a linear attenuation and the relation becomes: Sometimes the relation is given using the attenuation cross section of the material, that is its attenuation coefficient divided by its number density: where
σ is the attenuation cross section of that material;
and if is uniform along the path, i.e.,, the relation becomes:
Applications
Atomic physics
In atomic physics, the spectral optical depth of a cloud of atoms can be calculated from the quantum-mechanical properties of the atoms. It is given by where
In atmospheric sciences, one often refers to the optical depth of the atmosphere as corresponding to the vertical path from Earth's surface to outer space; at other times the optical path is from the observer's altitude to outer space. The optical depth for a slant path is, where τ′ refers to a vertical path, m is called the relative airmass, and for a plane-parallel atmosphere it is determined as where θ is the zenith angle corresponding to the given path. Therefore, The optical depth of the atmosphere can be divided into several components, ascribed to Rayleigh scattering, aerosols, and gaseous absorption. The optical depth of the atmosphere can be measured with a sun photometer. The optical depth with respect to the height within the atmosphere is given by and it follows that the total atmospheric optical depth is given by In both equations:
So, with a fixed depth and total liquid water path,
Astronomy
In astronomy, the photosphere of a star is defined as the surface where its optical depth is 2/3. This means that each photon emitted at the photosphere suffers an average of less than one scattering before it reaches the observer. At the temperature at optical depth 2/3, the energy emitted by the star matches the observed total energy emitted. Note that the optical depth of a given medium will be different for different colors of light. For planetary rings, the optical depth is the proportion of light blocked by the ring when it lies between the source and the observer. This is usually obtained by observation of stellar occultations.
