From Micro– to Macro–Raman Spectroscopy: Solar Silicon for a Case Study

The phenomenon of inelastic scattering of light by matter is referred as Raman spectroscopy named after Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman who first observed it experimentally in 1928 [1]. Because only one photon out of 106-1012 incident photons is inelastically or Raman scattered, it took some time until lasers with high enough light intensities for efficient Raman excitation and very sensitive detectors for measuring the still low intensity Raman light were developed. Another important step in advancing Raman instrumentation was the efficient rejection of the very intense elastic scattered light, known as Rayleigh light, through a double or triple monochromator or filters [2].