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⇤ APPLICATIONS, ARTICLES & TECHNICAL NOTES

Particle Sizing: what is Baseline Index and why is it important?

Particle Sizing: what is Baseline Index and why is it important?

The baseline index, abbreviated as BI, is a metric that can be used to quantify the impact of dust contamination on a given DLS measurement. Within the vernacular of light scattering, dust is often loosely defined, referring to any minor component too large to properly disperse, moving due to gravity, rather than Brownian motion. These large dust particles will often appear only transiently and can distort a measured autocorrelation function. A high baseline index, say BI = 10, would be expected for a perfectly dust-free sample, whereas a very low or near zero baseline index would be expected for a sample containing a noticeable amount of dust.