What is in the database?
The database contains
references
to the papers,
data files
and
links
to the Internet resources
related to measurements and calculations of the optical constants
in the wavelength interval from X-rays to radio domain.
The materials considered are
amorphous and crystalline silicates of different kinds,
various ices, oxides, sulfides, carbides,
carbonaceous species from amorphous carbon to graphite and diamonds
and some other materials of astrophysical and
terrestrial atmosphere interests.
We have comprised over 1150
references to the papers, books, dissertations
where the refractive index,
reflectance, transmittance, mass absorption coefficient, etc
were derived.
Most of the papers were published from the 60s to 2001.
Evidently, it was impossible for us to cite all the papers,
in particular for such materials as water ice, quartz, silica, silicon,
Mg and Al oxides, diamond and amorphous carbon.
In first turn, we paid attention
to astronomically interesting papers
and to papers not included in recent reviews
(though the majority of the papers referred by us
were mentioned in the reviews).
The lists of collected references for materials have a different degree
of complitness since the work is still in progress.
Filling the database was started with the data
available for us.
They are the optical constants measured
in the laboratory of the Astrophysical Institute of
the Friedrich Schiller University (Jena) as well as
the data obtained in the former Soviet Union before 1974
(when it joined the International Copyright Agreement)
and some often used freely accessible data.
The data we included are presented in their initial format
(table or figure) and in our standard tabular format.
In some cases we also give plots
(refractive index vs wavelength, dielectric permittivity vs energy)
and an information on how the data were derived,
what equipment was used and what samples were considered.
The service codes of the database allow one
to transfer the data from our standard format to a desirable form
(refractive index/dielectric permittivity vs wavelength/wavenumber/energy
tables with numbers given in any format).
Our scattering codes based on Mie theory and
separation of variables method for spheroids give the possibility
easily to transform the data into cross-sections,
single scattering albedo and so on.
References to some useful books and reviews on the subject
(e.g. the classical handbooks edited by E.D.Palik)
and links to Internet collections of optical constants and
personal WWW pages with related software
were also placed in the database.