Interstellar extinction by fractal polycrystalline graphite clusters?

Certain dust particles in space are expected to appear as clusters of individual grains. The morphology of these clusters could be fractal or compact. To determine how these structural features would affect the interpretation of the observed interstellar extinction peak at $\sim 4.6 \mu$m, we have calculated the extinction by compact and fractal polycrystalline graphite clusters consisting of touching identical spheres. We compare three general methods for computing the extinction of the clusters, namely, a rigorous solution and two different discrete-dipole approximation methods.