Light Scattering by a Sphere

This lecture covers the Mie theory for light scattering by a sphere, utilizing vector spherical harmonics to solve Maxwell's equations in spherical coordinates. It explains the radial and angular dependencies, expansion coefficients, and the link between vector spherical harmonics and Cartesian multipoles. The instructor also discusses the relationship between scatterer size and required multipoles, illustrating the radiation pattern with dipole, quadrupole, and octupole terms.