The Raman spectrum of rocksalt and its interpretation

Abstract

By a careful microphotometric study of the spectrograms taken under high dispersion, it has been shown that the Raman spectrum of rocksalt consists of an aggregate of discrete lines some of which are more intense than the others. With the aid of the indications given by the theory regarding the vibration frequencies and their relative activities in light-scattering, nine of the more prominent lines in the spectrum have been identified as the octaves and the rest as combinations of the nine fundamental frequencies of oscillation of the rocksalt lattice. The views expressed by Born and Bradburn regarding the nature of the rocksalt spectrum and the explanations offered by them for its appearance have been examined and shown to be untenable.