Brillouin scattering (also known as Brillouin light scattering or BLS), named after
Léon Brillouin
Léon Nicolas Brillouin (; August 7, 1889 – October 4, 1969) was a French physicist. He made contributions to quantum mechanics, radio wave propagation in the atmosphere, solid state physics, and information theory.
Early life
Brillouin ...
, refers to the interaction of
light
Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 te ...
with the material waves in a medium (e.g.
electrostriction Electrostriction (cf. magnetostriction) is a property of all electrical non-conductors, or dielectrics, that causes them to change their shape under the application of an electric field.
Explanation
Electrostriction is a property of all dielectri ...
and
magnetostriction
Magnetostriction (cf. electrostriction) is a property of magnetic materials that causes them to change their shape or dimensions during the process of magnetization. The variation of materials' magnetization due to the applied magnetic field chan ...
). It is mediated by the
refractive index
In optics, the refractive index (or refraction index) of an optical medium is a dimensionless number that gives the indication of the light bending ability of that medium.
The refractive index determines how much the path of light is bent, or ...
dependence on the material properties of the medium; as described in
optics
Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultrav ...
, the ''index of refraction'' of a transparent material changes under deformation (compression-distension or shear-skewing).
The result of the interaction between the light-wave and the carrier-deformation wave is that a fraction of the transmitted light-wave changes its momentum (thus its frequency and energy) in preferential directions, as if by diffraction caused by an oscillating 3-dimensional
diffraction grating
In optics, a diffraction grating is an optical component with a periodic structure that diffracts light into several beams travelling in different directions (i.e., different diffraction angles). The emerging coloration is a form of structur ...
.
If the medium is a solid crystal, a macromolecular chain condensate or a viscous liquid or gas, then the low frequency atomic-chain-deformation waves within the transmitting medium (not the transmitted electro-magnetic wave) in the carrier (represented as a
quasiparticle
In physics, quasiparticles and collective excitations are closely related emergent phenomena arising when a microscopically complicated system such as a solid behaves as if it contained different weakly interacting particles in vacuum.
For exa ...
) could be for example:
# mass oscillation (acoustic) modes (called
phonons);
# charge displacement modes (in dielectrics, called
polariton
In physics, polaritons are quasiparticles resulting from strong coupling of electromagnetic waves with an electric or magnetic dipole-carrying excitation. They are an expression of the common quantum phenomenon known as level repulsion, also ...
s);
# magnetic spin oscillation modes (in magnetic materials, called
magnon
A magnon is a quasiparticle, a collective excitation of the electrons' spin structure in a crystal lattice. In the equivalent wave picture of quantum mechanics, a magnon can be viewed as a quantized spin wave. Magnons carry a fixed amount of ...
s).
Mechanism
From the perspective of
solid state physics, Brillouin scattering is an interaction between an electromagnetic wave and one of the three above-mentioned crystalline lattice waves (e.g.
electrostriction Electrostriction (cf. magnetostriction) is a property of all electrical non-conductors, or dielectrics, that causes them to change their shape under the application of an electric field.
Explanation
Electrostriction is a property of all dielectri ...
and
magnetostriction
Magnetostriction (cf. electrostriction) is a property of magnetic materials that causes them to change their shape or dimensions during the process of magnetization. The variation of materials' magnetization due to the applied magnetic field chan ...
). The scattering is
inelastic
In economics, elasticity measures the percentage change of one economic variable in response to a percentage change in another. If the price elasticity of the demand of something is -2, a 10% increase in price causes the demand quantity to fall ...
i.e. the photon may lose energy (
Stokes process) and in the process create one of the three quasiparticle types (
phonon,
polariton
In physics, polaritons are quasiparticles resulting from strong coupling of electromagnetic waves with an electric or magnetic dipole-carrying excitation. They are an expression of the common quantum phenomenon known as level repulsion, also ...
,
magnon
A magnon is a quasiparticle, a collective excitation of the electrons' spin structure in a crystal lattice. In the equivalent wave picture of quantum mechanics, a magnon can be viewed as a quantized spin wave. Magnons carry a fixed amount of ...
) or it may gain energy (anti-Stokes process) by absorbing one of those quasiparticle types. Such a shift in photon energy, corresponding to a ''Brillouin shift'' in frequency, is equal to the energy of the released or absorbed quasiparticle. Thus, Brillouin scattering can be used to measure the energies, wavelengths and frequencies of various atomic chain oscillation types ('quasiparticles'). To measure a Brillouin shift a commonly employed device called the Brillouin
spectrometer
A spectrometer () is a scientific instrument used to separate and measure spectral components of a physical phenomenon. Spectrometer is a broad term often used to describe instruments that measure a continuous variable of a phenomenon where the ...
is used, the design of which is derived from a
Fabry–Pérot interferometer.
Contrast with Rayleigh scattering
Rayleigh scattering
Rayleigh scattering ( ), named after the 19th-century British physicist Lord Rayleigh (John William Strutt), is the predominantly elastic scattering of light or other electromagnetic radiation by particles much smaller than the wavelength of th ...
, too, can be considered to be due to fluctuations in the density, composition and orientation of molecules within the transmitting medium, and hence of its refraction index, in small volumes of matter (particularly in gases or liquids). The difference is that Rayleigh scattering involves only the random and incoherent thermal fluctuations, in contrast with the correlated, periodic fluctuations (phonons) that cause Brillouin scattering. Moreover, Rayleigh scattering is elastic in that no energy is lost or gained.
Contrast with Raman scattering
Raman scattering
Raman scattering or the Raman effect () is the inelastic scattering of photons by matter, meaning that there is both an exchange of energy and a change in the light's direction. Typically this effect involves vibrational energy being gained by a ...
is another phenomenon that involves inelastic scattering of light caused by the vibrational properties of matter. The detected range of frequency shifts and other effects are very different compared to Brillouin scattering. In Raman scattering, photons are scattered by the effect of vibrational and rotational transitions in the bonds between first-order neighboring atoms, while Brillouin scattering results from the scattering of
photon
A photon () is an elementary particle that is a quantum of the electromagnetic field, including electromagnetic radiation such as light and radio waves, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Photons are massless, so they a ...
s caused by large scale, low-frequency
phonons. The effects of the two phenomena provide very different information about the sample:
Raman spectroscopy can be used to determine the transmitting medium's chemical composition and molecular structure, while Brillouin scattering can be used to measure the material's properties on a larger scale – such as its elastic behavior. The frequency shifts from Brillouin scattering, a technique known as
Brillouin spectroscopy Brillouin spectroscopy is an empirical spectroscopy technique which allows the determination of elastic moduli of materials. The technique uses inelastic scattering of light when it encounters acoustic phonons in a crystal, a process known as Bril ...
, are detected with an
interferometer while Raman scattering uses either an interferometer or a dispersive (
grating
A grating is any regularly spaced collection of essentially identical, parallel, elongated elements. Gratings usually consist of a single set of elongated elements, but can consist of two sets, in which case the second set is usually perpendicul ...
)
spectrometer
A spectrometer () is a scientific instrument used to separate and measure spectral components of a physical phenomenon. Spectrometer is a broad term often used to describe instruments that measure a continuous variable of a phenomenon where the ...
.
Stimulated Brillouin scattering
For intense beams of light (e.g.
laser
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The fi ...
) traveling in a medium or in a
waveguide
A waveguide is a structure that guides waves, such as electromagnetic waves or sound, with minimal loss of energy by restricting the transmission of energy to one direction. Without the physical constraint of a waveguide, wave intensities de ...
, such as an
optical fiber
An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass ( silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a mea ...
, the variations in the
electric field of the beam itself may induce acoustic vibrations in the medium via
electrostriction Electrostriction (cf. magnetostriction) is a property of all electrical non-conductors, or dielectrics, that causes them to change their shape under the application of an electric field.
Explanation
Electrostriction is a property of all dielectri ...
or
radiation pressure
Radiation pressure is the mechanical pressure exerted upon any surface due to the exchange of momentum between the object and the electromagnetic field. This includes the momentum of light or electromagnetic radiation of any wavelength that is a ...
. The beam may display Brillouin scattering as a result of those vibrations, usually in the direction opposite the incoming beam, a phenomenon known as stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS). For liquids and gases, the frequency shifts typically created are of the order of 1–10
GHz
The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...
resulting in wavelength shifts of ~1–10
pm in the
visible light
Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 te ...
. Stimulated Brillouin scattering is one effect by which
optical phase conjugation
Nonlinear optics (NLO) is the branch of optics that describes the behaviour of light in ''nonlinear media'', that is, media in which the polarization density P responds non-linearly to the electric field E of the light. The non-linearity is typica ...
can take place.
Discovery
Inelastic scattering of light caused by acoustic phonons was first predicted by
Léon Brillouin
Léon Nicolas Brillouin (; August 7, 1889 – October 4, 1969) was a French physicist. He made contributions to quantum mechanics, radio wave propagation in the atmosphere, solid state physics, and information theory.
Early life
Brillouin ...
in 1914
.
Leonid Mandelstam is believed to have recognised the possibility of such scattering as early as 1918, but he published his idea only in 1926.
In order to credit Mandelstam, the effect is also called Brillouin-Mandelstam scattering (BMS). Other commonly used names are Brillouin light scattering (BLS) and Brillouin-Mandelstam light scattering (BMLS).
The process of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) was first observed by Chiao ''et al.'' in 1964. The optical phase conjugation aspect of the SBS process was discovered by
Boris Yakovlevich Zeldovich ''et al.'' in 1972.
Fiber optic sensing
Brillouin scattering can also be employed to sense
mechanical strain and temperature in optical fibers.
[
]
See also
*
Brillouin spectroscopy Brillouin spectroscopy is an empirical spectroscopy technique which allows the determination of elastic moduli of materials. The technique uses inelastic scattering of light when it encounters acoustic phonons in a crystal, a process known as Bril ...
*
Scattering
*
Raman scattering
Raman scattering or the Raman effect () is the inelastic scattering of photons by matter, meaning that there is both an exchange of energy and a change in the light's direction. Typically this effect involves vibrational energy being gained by a ...
*
Nonlinear optics
Nonlinear optics (NLO) is the branch of optics that describes the behaviour of light in ''nonlinear media'', that is, media in which the polarization density P responds non-linearly to the electric field E of the light. The non-linearity is typic ...
References
Notes
Sources
*
*
*
L.I. Mandelstam, ''Zh. Russ. Fiz-Khim.'', Ova. 58, 381 (1926).
*
*B.Ya. Zel’dovich, V.I.Popovichev, V.V.Ragulskii and F.S.Faisullov, "Connection between the wavefronts of the reflected and exciting light in stimulated Mandel’shtam Brillouin scattering," ''Sov. Phys. JETP'', 15, 109 (1972)
External links
CIMIT Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technologyin the ''Encyclopedia of Laser Physics and Technology''
U. Hawaii
List of labsperforming Brillouin scattering measurement
(source BS Lab in ICMM-CSIC)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brillouin Scattering
Scattering, absorption and radiative transfer (optics)
Scattering
Fiber-optic communications