Hello,
As the title suggests, could you please give some insights concerning the interaction between polarized light and weak attractive Van der Waals forces between molecules in a solid material (being irradiated during a Raman spectroscopy experiment for example).
Kind regards,
This is a potentially very complex problem. The first considerations are:
1. When you say "solid", is this a single crystal, a polycrystalline material or a glass?
2. If it is a single crystal, what is the crystal structure how is the incoming light polarized relative to the axes? How is it polarized relativ to the interface? Depending on the starting point your linear polarized light will stay either linear or become less or more elliptically polarized inside the medium.
3. If it is a polycrystalline material, are the crystallites small compared to the wavelength (diameter about one tenth of the wavelength)? If not, your incoming polarized light will become totally depolarized inside the medium.
After evaluating these points, one can proceed with discussing the nature of a potential interaction...
Dear Dr. Thomas Mayerhöfer,
First I would like to thank you for your valuable comment!
In fact, I am interested in the glass as the medium. As an "isotropic" medium, could you please comment on the nature of any potential interaction between linearly polarized light and weak electrostatic forces holding molecules together.
Kind regards,
In such a medium, linearly poarized incident light stays linearly polarized, which, e.g. leads to the fact that you can indeed determine e.g. a depolarization ratio which is in general not possible in polycrystalline materials. When we talk about Van-der-Waals interactions, however, Raman or IR spectroscopy cannot be used. The interaction energies lie, as far as I know, in the range of 100 J/mol which is about 1/1000 wavenumbers or in the Microwaverange if I am not mistaken.
Could you please explain the origin of the ratio 1/1000 cm-1?
Thank you again sir!
E = h ν = h c / λ
wavenumber = 1/λ therefore E/ (h c) = wavenumber
- Badges
- Science topic