Pollen characterization and identification by elastically scattered light.

The authors recorded the elastic light-scattering pattern of pollen over a large spatial angle range to investigate the potential light scattering for pollen identification. The scattering from elm, hazel, birch, chestnut, willow, sunflower, ragweed and pine was measured. The scattering patterns show distinct differences that can be used for the classification of pollen with simple algorithms.