Half-width scaling of electric field autocorrelation functions of light scattered from bull spermatozoa.

The half-width scaling of experimental and model electric field autocorrelation functions of light scattered from normally swimming, defectively swimming, and immotile bull spermatozoa is examined. It is found that a scatter of size 9.0 x 2.3 x 0.45 micrometers is most appropriate for this Rayleigh-Gans-Debye ellipsoid model. In the case of the immotile cells, this model correctly predicts the features seen in the scaling data as well as the absolute value of the data. For the normally swimming and defective populations the model proves to predict correctly the features seen in experimental scaling curves, but not the absolute value of the data. This discrepancy appears to be related to a lack of detail in the model, since the agreement is poorest at large scattering angles.