Answer to Question #116844 in Optics for nimra

Question

what is the basic principle of raman spectroscopy? how we can interpret the raman spectrum data? what information we get from raman spectra? which software is best to analtze raman data?

Answer 1

Raman is a light scattering technique, whereby a molecule scatters incident light from a high intensity laser light source. Most of the scattered light is at the same wavelength (or color) as the laser source and does not provide useful information – this is called Rayleigh Scatter. However a small amount of light (typically 0.0000001%) is scattered at different wavelengths (or colors), which depend on the chemical structure of the analyte.

Raman spectroscopy provides information about: chemical structure and identity, phase and polymorphism, intrinsic stress/strain, contamination and impurity.

Typically a Raman spectrum is a distinct chemical fingerprint for a particular molecule or material, and can be used to very quickly identify the material, or distinguish it from others. Raman spectral libraries are often used for identification of a material based on its Raman spectrum – libraries containing thousands of spectra are rapidly searched to find a match with the spectrum of the analyte.

In combination with mapping (or imaging) Raman systems, it is possible to generate images based on the sample’s Raman spectrum. These images show distribution of individual chemical components, polymorphs and phases, and variation in crystallinity.

HORIBA Scientific’s LabSpec 6

[1] https://www.horiba.com/en_en/raman-imaging-and-spectroscopy/

if you are intending full data processing from an 2D spectrum down to intensities of selected peaks, then you might use our SpecTools (https://spectools.sourceforge.net/). It is free-ware, LabVIEW based, so-that you can tailor it for various applications.