Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (1888 - 1970) was an Indian physicist whose discovery of the inelastic scattering of light, now known as the Raman effect, earned him the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics and made him the first Asian and first non-white person to receive a Nobel Prize in a scientific discipline. [1] Working largely with modest equipment, he demonstrated that light passing through a transparent material changes wavelength in a way that reveals the material's molecular structure, laying the foundation for a widely used spectroscopic technique. [2]
Early life and education
Raman was born on 7 November 1888 in Tiruchirappalli, in the Madras Presidency of British India, into a family with a strong academic tradition. He studied at Presidency College in Madras and took his degrees through the University of Madras, distinguishing himself in physics from an early age. [3]
Because opportunities for a research career in India were then scarce, Raman initially joined the Indian Finance Department as a civil servant, pursuing physics in his spare time at the laboratory of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science in Calcutta.
Academic career
In 1917 Raman left government service to become the Palit Professor of Physics at the University of Calcutta, where he built an active research school. He later served as director of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore and founded the Indian Academy of Sciences and, subsequently, the Raman Research Institute. [2]
The Raman effect
Fascinated by the deep blue colour of the sea, Raman investigated the scattering of light in liquids and transparent solids. In 1928 he and his collaborators observed that a small fraction of scattered light emerges with a shifted wavelength, a phenomenon caused by the exchange of energy between light and the vibrations of molecules. [1]
The effect became the basis of Raman spectroscopy, now used across chemistry, materials science, and medicine. India commemorates the discovery each year on National Science Day, 28 February. [2]
Honours and legacy
Raman was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1924 and was knighted in 1929, the year before he received the Nobel Prize. [4] In 1954 he was awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour, and he later received the Lenin Peace Prize. He continued research on the optics of crystals and minerals until late in life. [2]
Raman died on 21 November 1970 in Bengaluru. He is remembered as a pioneering figure in modern Indian science and as a mentor to a generation of physicists.
