Raman Spectroscopy

Raman Spectroscopy is a spectroscopic technique typically used in physics and chemistry to study vibrational, rotational, and other low-frequency modes in a system. It relies on inelastic scattering, or Raman scattering, of monochromatic light, usually from a laser in the visible, near infrared, or near ultraviolet range. The laser light interacts with molecular vibrations, phonons or other excitations in the system, resulting in the energy of the laser photons being shifted up or down. The shift in energy gives information about the vibrational modes in the system.

History[edit | edit source]

Raman spectroscopy is named after Indian physicist C. V. Raman, who first observed Raman scattering in 1928 with K. S. Krishnan, and independently by Grigory Landsberg and Leonid Mandelstam. Raman received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930 for his discovery.

Theory[edit | edit source]

Raman scattering or the Raman effect is the inelastic scattering of a photon. It was discovered by C. V. Raman and K. S. Krishnan in liquids, and by Grigory Landsberg and Leonid Mandelstam in crystals. The effect had been predicted theoretically by Adolf Smekal in 1923.

Applications[edit | edit source]

Raman spectroscopy is used in chemistry to identify molecules and study chemical bonding and intramolecular bonds. In solid-state physics, Raman spectroscopy is used to characterize materials, measure temperature, and find the crystallographic orientation of a sample. As with single molecules, a given solid material has characteristic phonon modes that can help an experimenter identify it.

See also[edit | edit source]

Raman Spectroscopy Resources
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