Titre : Raman Scattering: From a Scientific Curiosity to Single Molecule Detection.
Endroit : Pavillon J-A.-Bombardier, salle 1035 à 11 h.
Hôte : Professeur Jean-François Masson.
Cette conférence sera prononcée (en anglais) par le professeur Alexandre Brolo du Département de chimie de l'University of Victoria.
Résumé : Vibrational spectroscopy provides a pattern of bands that can uniquely identify (and even quantify) chemical species. The energies of vibrational transitions are in the infrared range, and, typically for chemical applications, a vibrational spectrum is obtained by IR absorption. However, vibrational information can also be obtained by Raman scattering, as demonstrated by C.V. Raman in the 1930’s. The “Raman effect” is generally very weak and for decades was treated as a scientific curiosity, only explored for scientific research and niche applications. In the last few years, advances in nanotechnology have provided avenues to boost the Raman efficiency through a phenomenon called surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). SERS has broadened the range of applications for Raman scattering allowing highly sensitive detection and quantification. In this presentation, we will provide a historical perspective of the advances in Raman scattering, particularly SERS, culminating to a range of very interesting applications. We will demonstrate how Raman spectroscopy and SERS can be used in the biomedical field. We will also discuss advances on the application of SERS for single molecule detection.
