Question

Sir C. V. Raman was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on:

• A. Diffraction
• B. Interference
• C. Scattering
• D. Polarization

Hint:

Recall the effect named after Raman himself, involving a wavelength shift in scattered light.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is C

Step 1: C. V. Raman studied what happens to a beam of light after it passes through a transparent substance such as a liquid or a crystal.

Step 2: He found that most of the light passing through the substance simply changes direction without changing its energy, which is ordinary elastic scattering. But a small fraction of the scattered light comes out with a different wavelength than the light that went in.

Step 3: This change in wavelength happens because the scattered photons exchange a small amount of energy with the vibrating molecules of the substance, gaining or losing energy equal to the molecule's vibrational energy levels. This phenomenon is called the Raman effect, a special kind of inelastic scattering of light.

Step 4: The Raman effect gave scientists a powerful new tool to study molecular vibrations and structure using only light, without breaking the sample apart.

Step 5: For discovering this effect, C. V. Raman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930, for his work on the scattering of light, matching option C.