Brillouin Scattering

Brillouin scattering, named after Léon Brillouin, refers to the interaction of light and material waves within a medium. It is mediated by the refractive index dependence on the material properties of the medium; as described in optics, 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.

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) could be for example:

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. The scattering is inelastic i.e. the photon may lose energy (Stokes process) and in the process create one of the three quasiparticle types (phonon, polaron, magnon) 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 is used, the design of which is derived from a Fabry–Pérot interferometer.

Rayleigh scattering, 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.

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