What is Raman spectroscopy?
Raman spectra are often called "Molecular Fingerprint" because they sharply reflect molecular structures. Raman scattering is a inelastic phenomenon found by Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman who is a Nobel laureate in 1928.
In Raman process, one incident photon dissapears and one photon whose energy is shifted from the energy of the incident photon is scattered. In Raman spectroscopy, the energy shift corresponds to the energy of molecular vibrations. By measuring the energy difference between the incident and scattered lights, we can obtain the informaion on molecular structures through molecular vibrations.
Raman scattering signals are very weak so that Raman measurements required many "tips". However, thanks to the development of lasers and detectors, Raman spectroscopy has been frequently used in very recent days.
In this lab...
It is nevertheless not easy to analyse, "interpret" Raman spectra, and extract information on molecular structures. In this lab, we are aiming to obtain strutural informaion at the molecular level buried so far by measuring Raman spectra with high accuracy and quality.