Laser for Raman spectroscopy

The IR and Raman spectra of partially hydrated proteins are a rich source of fundamental information on both water and protein species, owing to the sensitivity of vibrational modes to hydrogen bonding. The similar chemistry of water—water and water—peptide interactions requires that there be great accuracy in spectroscopic measurements of the hydration process. Since the review of the field by Kuntz and Kauz-mann (1974), the Fourier transform technique for IR and the tunable laser for Raman spectroscopy have offered important improvements in methodology. 

The use of pulsed lasers for Raman spectroscopy has, because of the very high powers involved, been largely in the area of nonlinear studies, and it is only recently that their value in the Raman work has been appreciated. The most commonly... 

The titanium-sapphire laser is perhaps the ultimate near-infrared laboratory laser for Raman spectroscopy. It is a continuous wave laser that can deliver thousands of milliwatts of laser light and is continuously tunable from below 700 to above 1000 nm. It provides a narrow bandwidth with a high-quality spatial mode. The spontaneous emission from the titanium-sapphire crystal must be filtered from the laser beam. 

SM Angel, M Carrabba, TF Cooney. The utilization of diode lasers for Raman spectroscopy. Spectrochim Acta 51A 1779-1799, 1995. 

Continuous wave (CW) lasers such as Ar and He-Ne are employed in conmionplace Raman spectrometers. However laser sources for Raman spectroscopy now extend from the edge of the vacuum UV to the near infrared. Lasers serve as an energetic source which at the same hme can be highly monochromatic, thus effectively supplying the single excitation frequency, v. The beams have a small diameter which may be... 

Perhaps the best known and most used optical spectroscopy which relies on the use of lasers is Raman spectroscopy. Because Raman spectroscopy is based on the inelastic scattering of photons, the signals are usually weak, and are often masked by fluorescence and/or Rayleigh scattering processes. The interest in usmg Raman for the vibrational characterization of surfaces arises from the fact that the teclmique can be used in situ under non-vacuum enviromnents, and also because it follows selection rules that complement those of IR spectroscopy. 

Lasers (see Chapter 9) are sources of intense, monochromatic radiation which are ideal for Raman spectroscopy and have entirely replaced atomic emission sources. They are more convenient to use, have higher intensity and are more highly monochromatic for example, the line width at half-intensity of 632.8 nm (red) radiation from a helium-neon laser can be less than 0.05 cm. ... 

Raman spectroscopy, long used for quaHtative analysis, has been revitalized by the availabiHty of laser sources. Raman spectroscopy is based on scattering of light with an accompanying shift in frequency. The amount by which the frequency is shifted is characteristic of the molecules that cause the scattering. Hence, measurement of the frequency shift can lead to identification of the material. 

Laser stimulation of a silver surface results in a reflected signal over a million times stronger than that of other metals. Called laser-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, this procedure is useful in catalysis. The large neutron cross section of silver (see Fig. 2), makes this element useful as a thermal neutron flux monitor for reactor surveillance programs (see Nuclearreactors). 

Because Raman spectroscopy requires one only to guide a laser beam to the sample and extract a scattered beam, the technique is easily adaptable to measurements as a function of temperature and pressure. High temperatures can be achieved by using a small furnace built into the sample compartment. Low temperatures, easily to 78 K (liquid nitrogen) and with some diflSculty to 4.2 K (liquid helium), can be achieved with various commercially available cryostats. Chambers suitable for Raman spectroscopy to pressures of a few hundred MPa can be constructed using sapphire windows for the laser and scattered beams. However, Raman spectroscopy is the characterizadon tool of choice in diamond-anvil high-pressure cells, which produce pressures well in excess of 100 GPa. ... 

The laser should have an output power as high as possible yet it should be able to operate at reduced power without fluctuation to avoid decomposition of the material. Some of the principal lasers suitable for Raman spectroscopy are now discussed. 

The first Raman and infrared studies on orthorhombic sulfur date back to the 1930s. The older literature has been reviewed before [78, 92-94]. Only after the normal coordinate treatment of the Sg molecule by Scott et al. [78] was it possible to improve the earlier assignments, especially of the lattice vibrations and crystal components of the intramolecular vibrations. In addition, two technical achievements stimulated the efforts in vibrational spectroscopy since late 1960s the invention of the laser as an intense monochromatic light source for Raman spectroscopy and the development of Fourier transform interferometry in infrared spectroscopy. Both techniques allowed to record vibrational spectra of higher resolution and to detect bands of lower intensity. 

The vibrational spectrum of a metal complex is one of the most convenient and unambigious methods of characterization. However, it has not been possible to study the interactions of metal ions and biological polymers in this way since the number of vibrational bands from the polymer obscure the metal spectrum. The use of laser techniques for Raman spectroscopy now make it very likely that the Raman spectra of metals in the presence of large amounts of biological material will be measured (34). The intensity of Raman lines from metal-ligand vibrations can be... 

A small sample exploded violently upon laser irradiation for Raman spectroscopy. 

Heating must be avoided during the preparation or subsequent drying, as occasional explosions occurred. It exploded immediately upon laser irradiation for Raman spectroscopy. 

Sampling techniques for Raman spectroscopy are relatively general since the only requirement is that the monochromatic laser beam irradiate the sample of interest and the scattered radiation be focused upon the detector. 

The experimental arrangement for Raman spectroscopy is similar to that used for fluorescence experiments (see Figure 1.8), although excitation is always performed by laser sources and the detection system is more sophisticated in regard to both the spectral resolution (lager monochromators) and the detection limits (using photon counting techniques see Section 3.5). 

Figure 2. Experimental set-up for Raman spectroscopy. The desired laser line is isolated from other plasma lines by a narrow bandpass filter or broadband prism monochromator, then focused onto a sample in a capillary tube. A collecting lens placed at a 90° angle to the incident beam focuses the scattered light onto the entrance slit of a monochromator with output to a photomultiplier tube (in the case of a scanning instrument) or a diode array detector.

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