What is the Optical Constant Database?

The Optical Constants database (OCdb) provides published, peer-reviewed, optical constants of organic refractory materials and ices relevant to planetary and astrophysical environments.

Optical constants are the real and imaginary parts of the complex refractive index, n + ik, of a material, which describe how a material interacts with incident light (transmission, reflection, refraction, absorption, scattering). They are fundamental input parameters for models (e.g. radiative transfer, atmospheric, and reflectance spectral models) that are used to interpret observational data.

The goal of OCdb is to centralize published optical constants data to facilitate access to the community. We therefore encourage laboratories generating optical constants to contribute their data in order to increase their visibility and availability.

The Optical Constants Database was developed by the NASA Ames Astrophysics & Astrochemistry Laboratory, within the Space Science and Astrobiology Division at NASA Ames Research Center under two Directed Work Packages funded by the NASA Science Mission Directorate Astrophysics Division (APD) and Planetary Science Division: The NASA Ames Laboratory Astrophysics Directed Work Package (LADWP) and the NASA Center for Optical Constants (NCOC). The Optical Constants Database provides published, peer-reviewed, optical constants data in a venue that is both publicly accessible and open to data contributions from the greater scientific community.