Comparison of the Photon Diffusion Model and

Kubelka-Munk Equation with the Exact Solution

of the Radiative Transport Equation
L. F. Gate
English China Clays Research Laboratories, St. Austell,
Cornwall, England.
Received 5 July 1973.
The radiative transport equation gives a complete de­
scription of the passage of light through scattering and
absorbing media; its approximate solution is difficult, and
an exact solution has only been tabulated in the literature
for two restricted cases. The photon diffusion model1 is
an approximate solution to the radiative transfer equation
that is restricted to the case of relatively low light absorp­
tion, and, in order to quantify the range of absorption
cross sections (Σa) over which the photon diffusion model
may be used (and what errors are likely to be associated
with its use), a comparison has been made between the
predicted diffuse reflectances from thick layers of reflect­
ing materials by use of the two exact solutions and the
corresponding approximate solutions given by the photon
diffusion model. In this comparison the diffuse reflectan­
ces are given as a function of the ratio of the absorption to
scattering cross sections (Σ a /Σ s ).

236 APPLIED OPTICS / Vol. 13, No. 2 / February 1974

 Case 1. The simplest case for which this comparison
can be made is for isotropic scatter. In this case, and for a
diffusely incident light flux, Giovanelli2 has given the fol­
lowing expression for the diffuse reflectance of a semi-infi­
nite layer:
where ω0 - α/α + σ and α1 is the first moment of the
Chandrasekhar H-function,
and which has been tabulated as a function of ω0.3 Giova­
nelli has also extended the range of calculated values of α1
for ω0 close to unity.2
In terms of the notation that has been adopted for the
photon diffusion model, the absorption coefficient a is
identical with the absorption cross section Σα and, simi­
larly, the scattering coefficient σ is identical with the
scattering cross section ΣS. Hence we have,
For isotropic scatter, the photon diffusion model gives
the very much simpler expression for the diffuse reflec­
tance,
Case 2. In the case of anisotropic scatter from a parti­
cle or scattering center, where the distribution of scat­
tered light is rotationally symmetric about the incident
direction and is described by the function (1 + μ), where
μ is the cosine of the angle between the direction of scat­
ter and the incident direction, the reflectance for diffusely
incident light is given by Giovanelli2 for the exact solution
to the radiative transfer equation as,
where ωo and α1 are as given above and α0 is given by
and
These other functions have again been tabulated by
Chandraskhar3 and extended in the region of ω0 = 1 by
Giovanelli.2 In the case of the photon diffusion model for
the case of anisotropic scattering, the scattering cross sec­
tion for a phase function P(μ) is modified by the term (1
- A), where
For the case considered above for an exact solution to
the radiative transfer equation, P(μ) = (1 + μ) and we
have μ = 1/3. Hence the modified scattering cross section
for the photon diffusion model becomes ΣS(1 - μ)=2/3 ·
ΣS for substitution in Eq. (2), and the diffuse reflec­
tance in this particular case may then be written
The four diffuse reflectances given by Eqs. (1) to (4) are
plotted in Fig. 1. It will be seen that for both types of
scattering the diffusion approximation is in complete
Fig. 1. The reflectance of a semi-infinite diffuser (for diffuse in­
cident radiation) as a function of the ratio of the absorption to
scattering cross sections for two types of scattering phase function
given by the exact solution to the radiative transfer equation and
the photon diffusion model.
agreement with the exact solution for diffuse reflectances
R∞ ∞ 0.8, corresponding to values of the ratio Σ a / Σ s of
the order of 0.01 and lower. For diffuse reflectance values
lower than 0.8, the photon diffusion approximation gives
reflectances that are slightly lower than the exact values
with a divergence that increases progressively with the in­
creasing values of the ratio Σ a /Σ s . However, this diver­
gence is only 5% when the reflectance has dropped to 0.5.
The ratio of the Kubelka-Munk coefficients of absorp­
tion (K) and scattering (S) are frequently used in the in­
terpretation of reflectance data; Blevin and Brown4 have
considered the relationship between the Kubelka-Munk
solution and the exact solution for isotropic scatter for the
radiative transport equation and concluded that it was
possible to normalize the K-M curve to coincide with the
exact solution by using an empirical factor. In terms of
the Kubelka-Munk coefficients, we may write the diffuse
reflection as,
and from a comparison with Eq. (2) we may derive the re­
lationship between the coefficients as
As Eq. (2) gives agreement with the exact solution for
the case when Σa ≤ 0.01 ΣS, we may write from Eq. (6)
for these conditions,
and when this is substituted in the Kubelka-Munk remis­
sion function, which is Eq. (5) written in the form
we should get agreement with the exact solution of the
radiative transfer equation.
This is illustrated in Fig. 2, where the Kubelka-Munk
remission function in the unmodified and modified forms
(×3/8)is compared with the exact solution. It will be seen
that the modifying factor succeeds in producing close
February 1974 / Vol. 13, No. 2 / APPLIED OPTICS 237

Fig. 2. The reflectance of a semi-infinite diffuser with diffuse in­
cident radiation and isotropic scatter given by the Kubelka-
Munk function compared with the exact solution of the radiative
transport equation.
Fig. 3. The ratio of the Kubelka-Munk scattering coefficient to
the scattering cross section as given by Klier's solution (full line)
and the photon diffusion model (broken line).
Fig. 4. The ratio of the Kubelka-Munk absorption coefficient to
the absorption cross section as given by Klief's solution (full line)
and the photon diffusion model (broken line).
238 APPLIED OPTICS / Vol. 13, No. 2 / February 1974
agreement with the exact solution and thus explains the
empirical result of Blevin and Brown.
The above relationship between the ratios of the ab­
sorption and scattering cross sections and the Kubelka-
Munk coefficients has also been developed recently
through different approaches by Mudgett and Richards 5
and by Klier. 6
When we consider the individual relationships between
the scattering coefficients and absorption coefficients
(exact and approximate), we can obtain another useful
guide to the success of the diffusion model in describing
the situation in a scattering and absorbing medium.
Thus from the diffusion model and the Kubelka-Munk
equations, Brinkworth 7 has derived the relationships,
which can be compared with those developed in the work
of Klier for the relationship between the coefficients in
the exact solution to the radiative transport equation for
isotropic scatter and the Kubelka-Munk equation. These
comparisons are illustrated in Figs. 3 and 4 as a function
of the ratio Σ a /Σ s . In the case of the ratio of the scatter­
ing coefficients S/Σs (Fig. 3), the photon diffusion model
gives a lower value than the exact ratio with increasing
divergence as Σa/Σs increases. However, this divergence
is still relatively small for quite low values of the diffuse
reflectance. (The diffuse reflectance can be obtained
from the ratio of Σa/Σs from Fig. 1 for the case of isotrop­
ic scatter.) Thus when the reflectance of the semi-infi­
nite diffuser is at the 60% level, the ratio of S/Σs predict­
ed by the photon diffusion model is only 3.7% lower than
the exact value given by Klier. In the case of the ratio of
the absorption coefficients K/Σa (Fig. 4) we find that the
exact ratio falls progressively below the value of 2.0 pre­
dicted by the photon diffusion model for increasing values
of the ratio Σa/Σs. However, as in the case of the scatter­
ing coefficients, there is still a large range of diffuse re­
flectance values for which the photon diffusion approxi­
mation is still quite acceptable. Thus when the diffuse
reflectance is at the 60% level, the exact ratio for K / Σ a is
only 2.5% lower than that predicted by the photon diffu­
sion model.
References
1. L. F. Gate, J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 4, 1049 (1971).
2. R. G. Giovanelli, Opt. Acta 2, 153 (1955).
3. S. Chandrasekhar, Radiative Transfer (Dover, New York,
1960).
4. W. R. Blevin and W. J. Brown, J. Opt. Soc. Am. 52, 1250
(1962).
5. P. S. Mudgett and L. W. Richards, Appl. Opt. 10, 1485 (1971).
6. K. Klier, J. Opt. Soc. Am. 62, 882 (1973).
7. B. J. Brinkworth, J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 4, 1105 (1971).