History
Although the inelastic scattering of light was predicted by Adolf Smekal in 1923, it is not until 1928 that it was observed in practice. The Raman effect was named after one of its discoverers, the Indian scientist Sir C. V. Raman who observed the effect by means of sunlight (1928, together with K. S. Krishnan and independently by Grigory Landsberg and Leonid Mandelstam). Raman won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930 for this discovery accomplished using sunlight, a narrow band photographic filter to create monochromatic light, and a "crossed filter" to block this monochromatic light. He found that a small amount of light had changed frequency and passed through the "crossed" filter.
Systematic pioneering theory of the Raman effect was developed by Czechoslovak physicist George Placzek between 1930 and 1934. The mercury arc became the principal light source, first with photographic detection and then with spectrophotometric detection. At the present time, lasers are used as light sources.
Read more about this topic: Raman Spectroscopy
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