Raman scattering is a type of inelastic scattering that occurs when a photon interacts with a molecule or crystal and excites the vibrational modes of its constituent atoms. The incident photon transfers some of its energy to the molecule, causing it to vibrate at higher frequencies. This results in a scattered photon with a different frequency than the incident photon.
The principle of Raman scattering can be explained by two types of molecular vibrations: stretching and bending. Stretching vibrations involve changes in bond lengths, while bending vibrations involve changes in bond angles. When light interacts with these vibrational modes, some photons are scattered with a different frequency due to the transfer of energy between the light and the molecule. The resulting spectrum contains peaks corresponding to each vibrational mode that was excited.
In contrast, Rayleigh scattering is an elastic scattering process where photons scatter off particles without any change in their energy or wavelength. Rayleigh scattering occurs when the size of particles is much smaller than the wavelength of incident radiation, such as air molecules scattering sunlight to produce blue skies.
The main difference between Raman and Rayleigh scattering lies in their energy transfer mechanisms. In Rayleigh scattering, photons are scattered without any net transfer of energy from the incident radiation to the particle or medium being illuminated. In Raman scattering, some photons lose (or gain) energy during interactions with matter and scatter at different wavelengths than those inelastically interacting photons.
Overall, Raman spectroscopy allows for analysis of chemical bonds and functional groups present in a sample through interpretation of spectral data obtained by measuring scattered light intensities over different wave number ranges while illuminating materials with monochromatic laser radiation compared to simple detection techniques like Rayleigh Scattering which provides information about particle properties such as size and composition based on intensity measurements only




