Raman microscope

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Overview

The Raman microscope is an optical microscope through which an monochromatic laser source is directed at a sample. The sample absorbs energy and scatters the light at different wavelengths which is then read with a CCD camera. Raman is based inelastic scattering due to characteristic vibrational modes of the material being studied. It is an sensitive spectroscopic technique which allows you to no destructively identify microscopic samples.

Energy level diagram showing the states involved in Raman signal. The line thickness is roughly proportional to the signal strength from the different transitions.

Significance

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Micro Raman spectroscopy is a useful technique for determining the number of layers of small samples of graphene.

External links

• University of Cambridge Raman animations

• wikipedia:Raman spectroscopy