Non-invasive analysis of ceramics by Raman spectroscopy

Raman spectroscopy has been known for more than 70 years but only lately major improvements in performance, handling, size and cost of the equipment made this technique routinely available for material characterization. Raman is a rapid metho for analysing physical, chemical and molecular properties of ceramic bulk materials, interfaces and surfaces with a micron spatial resolution. It is non-contact, non-destructive and neither requires special sample preparation nor vacuum conditions or similar. This makes it an easy-to-use and versatile tool for the research and application laboratory as well as for process monitoring in production. A number of selected applications aim to demonstrate the potential of Raman in the field of ceramics.