C.V. RAMAN “The Great Indian

Physicist”

SIR CHANDRASEKHARA VENKATA RAMAN

Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, FRS

was an Indian physicist whose ground breaking

work in the field of light scattering

earned him the 1930 Nobel Prize for

Physics.

Venkata Raman Was Born In Thiruvanaikaval, Trichinopoly

, Present-day Tiruchirapalli, Madras

Presidency, In British India To Parvati Ammal (Saptarshi

Parvati) And R. Chandrasekhara Ayer.

 He Was The Second Of Their Eight Children.

2nd in eight children (5 sons and 3 daughters)

Father was a teacher in a school, later moved to Visakhapatnam to be a lecturer in Mathematics and Physics in the Mrs. AVN College when Raman was 3, with a salary of Rs 85/- per month

Matriculated at 11, FA at 13, BA at 15 from the Presidency College in Chennai (Gold medal in English and Physics) and MA at 18 (exempted from attending all classes of science)

“EARLY LIFE & CAREER”

First research paper at the age of 16 in The Philosophical Magazine (London) on diffraction of light from prism, and another on measurement of surface tension (communicated by author himself, with no acknowledgements!)

Topped Civil Services exam (Finance Dept)- “I shall ever be grateful to the Civil Surgeon of Madras”

In 1907, at 18 ½ married Lokasundari and then joined as Asst Accountant General in the Finance Dept, Kolkata

Very much occupied due to the job, he still managed to spare his evenings for scientific research at the laboratory of the Indian Association for Cultivation of Sciences. On certain occasions, he even spent the entire nights. Such was his passion that in 1917, he resigned from the position to become the Professor of Physics at Calcutta University.

On a sea voyage to Europe in 1921, Raman curiously noticed the blue colour of the glaciers and the Mediterranean. He was passionate to discover the reason of the blue colour.

Once Raman returned to India, he performed many experiments regarding the scattering of light from water and transparent blocks of ice. According to the results, he established the scientific explanation for the blue colour of sea-water and sky. There is a captivating event that served as the inspiration for the discovery of the Raman Effect.

Raman employed monochromatic light from a mercury arc which penetrated transparent materials and was allowed to fall on a spectrograph to record its spectrum.

During this, Raman detected some new lines in the spectrum which were later called ‘Raman Lines’.

CONTRIBUTIONS AND ACHIEVEMENTS

After a few months, Raman put forward his discovery of ‘Raman Effect’ in a meeting of scientists at Bangalore on March 16, 1928, for which he won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930.

The ‘Raman Effect’ is considered very significant in analyzing the molecular structure of chemical compounds. After a decade of its discovery, the structure of about 2000 compounds was studied. Thanks to the invention of the laser, the ‘Raman Effect’ has proved to be a very useful tool for scientists.

Some of Raman’s other interests were the physiology of human vision, the optics of colloids and the electrical and magnetic anisotropy.

Sir C.V. Raman became the Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1924.

mind = aE

polarizability

Classical Theory of Raman Effect

max 0

max max 0

max max 0

( ) cos 2

1cos 2 ( )

21

cos 2 ( )2

equilz zz

zzvib

zzvib

t E t

dr E t

drd

r E tdr

Selection rule: Dv = ±1Overtones: Dv = ±2, ±3, …

Raman Scattering

Must also have a change in polarizability

Classical Description does not suggest any difference between Stokes and Anti-Stokes intensities

1

0

vibh

kTN

eN

Presentation of Raman Spectra

lex = 1064 nm = 9399 cm-1

Breathing mode:9399 – 992 = 8407 cm-1

Stretching mode:9399 – 3063 = 6336 cm-1

A year later, he set up Raman Research Institute near Bangalore, where he continued the scientific research until his death which was caused by a strong heart attack on November 21, 1970. 

His Sincere Advice To Aspiring Scientists Was That

“Scientific Research Needed Independent Thinking And Hard

Work, Not Equipment.”

Prepared & Submitted by:

GREESHMA. M.PHYSICAL SCIENCEREG. No. 13304009

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Thanking You……