Scattering from nanoparticles has previously been utilized to achieve sub-wavelength resolution in microscopy, sub-diffraction beam widths in focused laser beams, and improved sensitivity in biological sensing. However, these applications often require time-consuming detailed vectorial simulation of the interaction of incident fields with the nanoparticles to achieve the desired performance. On the other hand, the scalar angular spectrum method is widely used for rapid holographic reconstruction, but can be inaccurate for sub-wavelength features, depending on the light-matter interaction model. Here we establish the domains of accuracy of three scalar light-matter interaction models for arrays of randomly distributed dielectric and metallic nanoparticles.
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