Low‐Frequency Raman Scattering from Nanocrystals Caused by Coherent Excitation of Phonons

Abstract

Since the first observation of surface acoustic modes from silicon nanocrystals (NCs) embedded in silica byDuval et al., low-frequency Raman scattering from NCs has become an important researcharea inmanyfields including semiconductor technologies, medical therapeutics, and biophysics. Recent research has indicated that low-frequency Raman spectroscopy is a feasible non-destructive technique for investigating virus functionalization, for example, introducing viruses on different materials, attaching viruses to quantum dots and carbon nanotubes, and forming multiple superstructures. These superstructures are expected to have important applications in biological science and medicine. However, the current assignment of the low-frequency Raman modes is based on Lamb’s theory that mainly focuses on the mode frequencies of an elastic vibration of a free isotropic sphere. Many studies have demonstrated that the surface acoustic-mode frequencies observed from free NCs and NCembedded matrix systems are consistent with the theoretical prediction. This is understandable because a large number of frequency values can be selected to match the experimental results. At the same time, other studies have unequivocally