C. V.

Raman
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Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman

Born

7 November 1888
Thiruvanaikoil, Trichinopoly,Madras Province, British
India

Died

21 November 1970 (aged 82)

Bangalore, Karnataka, India

Nationality

Indian

Fields

Physics

Institutions

Indian Finance Department[1]

University of Calcutta
Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science
Indian Institute of Science
Central College, Bangalore University
Raman Research Institute

Alma mater

University of Madras

Doctoral

G. N. Ramachandran

students

Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai

Known for

Raman effect

Notable awards

Knight Bachelor (1929)

Nobel Prize in Physics (1930)
Bharat Ratna (1954)
Lenin Peace Prize (1957)

Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, FRS (7 November 1888 21 November 1970) was an Indian
physicist whose work was influential in the growth of science in India. He was the recipient of the Nobel
Prize for Physics in 1930 for the discovery that when light traverses a transparent material, some of the
light that is deflected changes in wavelength. This phenomenon is now called Raman scattering and is the
result of the Raman effect.
Contents
[hide]

1 Early years

2 Career

3 Personal life

4 Books

5 Honours and awards

6 Archive of Raman Research Papers

7 Publications

8 Death

9 See also

10 Notes

11 References

12 Further reading

13 External links

Early years[edit]
Venkata Raman was born in Thiruvanaikaval, Trichinopoly, Madras Province, in British India to R.
Chandrasekhara Iyer (b. 1866) and Parvati Ammal (Saptarshi Parvati). [2] He was the second of their five
children. At an early age, Raman moved to the city of Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, and studied in St.
Aloysius Anglo-Indian High School. His father was a lecturer in mathematics and physics at Presidency
College in Madras, which Raman entered in 1902 at the age of 13.[3] In 1904 he passed his B.A.
examination in first place and won the gold medal in physics, and in 1907 he gained his M.A. degree with
the highest distinctions.[1]

Career[edit]
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In 1917, Raman resigned from his government service after he was appointed the first Palit Professor of
Physics at the University of Calcutta. At the same time, he continued doing research at the Indian
Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), Calcutta, where he became the Honorary Secretary.
Raman used to refer to this period as the golden era of his career. Many students gathered around him at
the IACS and the University of Calcutta.

Energy level diagram showing the states involved in Raman signal.

On 28 February 1928, Raman led experiments at the IACS with collaborators, including K. S. Krishnan, on
the scattering of light, when he discovered the Raman effect. A detailed account of this period is reported in
the biography by G. Venkatraman.[4] It was instantly clear that this discovery was of huge value. It gave
further proof of the quantum nature of light. Raman had a complicated professional relationship with K. S.
Krishan, who surprisingly did not share the award, but is mentioned prominently even in the Nobel lecture. [5]
Raman spectroscopy came to be based on this phenomenon, and Ernest Rutherford referred to it in his
presidential address to the Royal Society in 1929. Raman was president of the 16th session of the Indian

Science Congress in 1929. He was conferred a knighthood, and medals and honorary doctorates by
various universities. Raman was confident of winning the Nobel Prize in Physics as well, but was
disappointed when the Nobel Prize went to Richardson in 1928 and to de Broglie in 1929. He was so
confident of winning the prize in 1930 that he booked tickets in July, even though the awards were to be
announced in November, and would scan each day's newspaper for announcement of the prize, tossing it
away if it did not carry the news. He did eventually win the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his work on the
scattering of light and for the discovery of the Raman effect". He was the first Asian and first non-White to
receive any Nobel Prize in the sciences. Before him Rabindranath Tagore (also Indian) had received the
Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.
Raman and Bhagavantam discovered the quantum photon spin in 1932, which further confirmed the
quantum nature of light.[6]
During his tenure at IISc, he recruited the then talented electrical engineering student, G. N.
Ramachandran, who later was a distinguished X-ray crystallographer himself.
Raman also worked on the acoustics of musical instruments. He worked out the theory
of transverse vibration of bowed strings, on the basis of superposition velocities. He was also the first to
investigate the harmonic nature of the sound of the Indian drums such as thetabla and the mridangam.
Raman and his student, Nagendra Nath, provided the correct theoretical explanation for the acousto-optic
effect (light scattering by sound waves), in a series of articles resulting in the celebrated Raman-Nath
theory.[7] Modulators, and switching systems based on this effect have enabled optical communication
components based on laser systems.
Raman was succeeded by Debendra Mohan Bose as the Palit Professor in 1932. In 1933, Raman left
IACS to join Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore as its first Indian director.[8] Other investigations carried
out by Raman were experimental and theoretical studies on the diffraction of light by acoustic waves
of ultrasonic and hypersonic frequencies (published 19341942), and those on the effects produced by Xrays on infrared vibrations in crystals exposed to ordinary light.
He also started a company called Travancore Chemical and Manufacturing Co. Ltd. in 1943 along with Dr.
Krishnamurthy. The Company during its sixty year history established four factories in Southern India. In
1947, he was appointed as the first National Professor by the new government of Independent India.
In 1948, Raman, through studying the spectroscopic behaviour of crystals, approached in a new manner
fundamental problems of crystal dynamics. He dealt with the structure and properties of diamond, the
structure and optical behaviour of numerous iridescent substances (labradorite,
pearly feldspar, agate, opal, and pearls). Among his other interests were the optics of colloids, electrical
and magnetic anisotropy, and the physiology of human vision.[9]

Personal life[edit]

He was married on 6 May 1907 to Lokasundari Ammal (18921980 [10]) with whom he had two sons,
Chandrasekhar and Radhakrishnan.
On his religious views, he was said to be an agnostic. [11][12]
Raman retired from the Indian Institute of Science in 1944 and established the Raman Research
Institute in Bangalore, Karnataka a year later. He served as its director and remained active there until his
death in 1970, in Bangalore, at the age of 82
Raman was the paternal uncle of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who later won the Nobel Prize in
Physics (1983) for his discovery of the Chandrasekhar limit in 1931 and for his subsequent work on the
nuclear reactions necessary for stellar evolution.