Investigating Solid State Materials Using ZEISS Scanning Electron Microscopes with Integrated Raman Spectrometers

Raman spectroscopy is non-destructive and allows for the detection, identification and quantification of solid state materials and molecules through their unique vibrational and rotational energy level structure. Since the Raman signal is quite weak very sensitive detectors are used to detect the very faint signal. Excellent filtering is therefore essential to block the very intense laser light while still allowing high transmission of the slightly wavelength-shifted Raman scattered signal. Plotting the intensity of this “shifted” light versus frequency results in a Raman spectrum of the sample. Chemical identifications can be performed by using search algorithms against digital databases. This application note demonstrates the analysis of graphene using SEM and integrated Raman.