Raman Spectroscopy and Photoluminescence of Defects and Impurities in Crystals

Raman spectroscopy and photoluminescence are sensitive to the presence of defects and impurities in crystals. The disruption of long-range translational symmetry in crystals through the presence of defects or impurities affects the phonon spectrum as observed in the shifting and broadening of Raman bands. Impurities in a crystal can be detected through photoluminescence. This is particularly true for the presence of transition metal and lanthanide impurities in an otherwise transparent host crystal.

Topics to be covered are:

• Strain and nanocrystallinity manifest in Raman scattering
• Crystalline impurities characterized through group theory and Raman selection rules
• Photoluminescence from transition metal or lanthanide impurities

Speakers

David Tuschel
Manager of Raman Applications Lab
HORIBA Scientific

David Tuschel is currently the Manager of Raman Applications at HORIBA Scientific. In this capacity he manages support of customers in applied Raman spectroscopy. David also shares responsibility with Fran Adar of HORIBA for authoring “Molecular Spectroscopy Workbench,” which appears regularly in Spectroscopy magazine. Before joining HORIBA, David was a Senior Researcher at the University of Pittsburgh from 2009 to early 2011 working on UV resonance Raman spectroscopy of explosives. He was the Principal Materials Scientist at ChemImage from 2002 to 2008. From 1985 to 2002, David was a Research Scientist at Kodak, during which time he developed polarization/orientation micro-Raman techniques for the characterization of solid-state materials in general and photonic/microelectronic devices in particular.