Milestone-Proposal:RAMAN EFFECT

Docket #:2009-04

This Proposal has been approved, and is now a Milestone Nomination

This is a draft proposal, that has not yet been submitted. To submit this proposal, click on "Edit with form", check the "Submit this proposal for review" box at the bottom, and save the page.

Is the achievement you are proposing more than 25 years old?

Is the achievement you are proposing within IEEE’s fields of interest? (e.g. “the theory and practice of electrical, electronics, communications and computer engineering, as well as computer science, the allied branches of engineering and the related arts and sciences” – from the IEEE Constitution)

Did the achievement provide a meaningful benefit for humanity?

Was it of at least regional importance?

Has an IEEE Organizational Unit agreed to pay for the milestone plaque(s)?

Has an IEEE Organizational Unit agreed to arrange the dedication ceremony?

Has the IEEE Section in which the milestone is located agreed to take responsibility for the plaque after it is dedicated?

Has the owner of the site agreed to have it designated as an Electrical Engineering Milestone? Yes

Year or range of years in which the achievement occurred:

1928

Title of the proposed milestone:

RAMAN EFFECT

Plaque citation summarizing the achievement and its significance:

In what IEEE section(s) does it reside?

IEEE CALCUTTA SECTION

IEEE Organizational Unit(s) which have agreed to sponsor the Milestone:

IEEE Organizational Unit(s) paying for milestone plaque(s):

Unit: IEEE CALCUTTA SECTION
Senior Officer Name: Senior officer name masked to public

IEEE Organizational Unit(s) arranging the dedication ceremony:

Unit: IEEE CALCUTTA SECTION
Senior Officer Name: Senior officer name masked to public

IEEE section(s) monitoring the plaque(s):

IEEE Section: IEEE CALCUTTA SECTION
IEEE Section Chair name: Section chair name masked to public

Milestone proposer(s):

Proposer name: Proposer's name masked to public
Proposer email: Proposer's email masked to public

Please note: your email address and contact information will be masked on the website for privacy reasons. Only IEEE History Center Staff will be able to view the email address.

Street address(es) and GPS coordinates of the intended milestone plaque site(s):

INDIAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE CULTIVATION OF SCIENCE,CALCUTTA (NOW KOLKATA), INDIA

Describe briefly the intended site(s) of the milestone plaque(s). The intended site(s) must have a direct connection with the achievement (e.g. where developed, invented, tested, demonstrated, installed, or operated, etc.). A museum where a device or example of the technology is displayed, or the university where the inventor studied, are not, in themselves, sufficient connection for a milestone plaque.

Please give the address(es) of the plaque site(s) (GPS coordinates if you have them). Also please give the details of the mounting, i.e. on the outside of the building, in the ground floor entrance hall, on a plinth on the grounds, etc. If visitors to the plaque site will need to go through security, or make an appointment, please give the contact information visitors will need.

INDIAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE CULTIVATION OF SCIENCE RAJA SUBODH MULLICK ROAD KOLKATA 700032, INDIA

Are the original buildings extant?

No

Details of the plaque mounting:

How is the site protected/secured, and in what ways is it accessible to the public?

It is a Government of India Research Organization, with proper protected campus.The plaque may be erected at the Main Gate, or at the Central lobby of the Building. Visitors are allowed inside for specific purposes with proper identity.

Who is the present owner of the site(s)?

INDIAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE CULTIVATION OF SCIENCES

A letter in English, or with English translation, from the site owner(s) giving permission to place IEEE milestone plaque on the property:

A letter or email from the appropriate Section Chair supporting the Milestone application:

What is the historical significance of the work (its technological, scientific, or social importance)?

Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman discovered in February 28, 1928, that when a beam of coloured light entered a liquid, a fraction of light scattered was of a different colour, dependent on material property. This radiation effect of molecular scattering of light bears his name as ‘Raman Effect’, for which he was awarded Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930.

What obstacles (technical, political, geographic) needed to be overcome?

Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was born at Trichinopoly in Southern India on November 7th, 1888. His father was a lecturer in mathematics and physics so that from the first he was immersed in an academic atmosphere. He entered Presidency College, Madras, in 1902, and in 1904 passed his B.A. examination, winning the first place and the gold medal in physics; in 1907 he gained his M.A. degree, obtaining the highest distinctions. His earliest researches in optics and acoustics - the two fields of investigation to which he has dedicated his entire career - were carried out while he was a student. Since at that time a scientific career did not appear to present the best possibilities, Raman joined the Indian Finance Department in 1907; though the duties of his office took most of his time, Raman found opportunities for carrying on experimental research in the laboratory of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science at Calcutta (of which he became Honorary Secretary in 1919). In 1917 he was offered the newly endowed Palit Chair of Physics at Calcutta University, and decided to accept it. He served there for 15 years at Calcutta before he joined Indian Institute of Science Bangalore.

What features set this work apart from similar achievements?

Sir C. V. Raman was a remarkable personality in science. His sixty seven years of scientific life was filled to the brim of which twenty six years he worked at Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), Calcutta - the golden era described by Professor Raman. During the period he not only did pioneering work in the different branches of Physics including the well-known scattering of light but also he was the founder of a school of Physics by attracting a band of devoted and brilliant workers from different parts of the country. Professor Raman was awarded the coveted Nobel Prize for the effect named after him [1-10] in 1930. Working at IACS he discovered that when a beam of coloured light entered a liquid, a fraction of the light scattered by that liquid was of different colour. He then showed that the nature of the coloured scattered light was dependent on the type of the sample present. In his 1930 Nobel lecture [11] he remarked “… the character of the scattered radiation enable us to obtain an insight into the ultimate structure of the scattering substance….the new field of spectroscopy has unrestricted scope in the problems, relating to structure of matter. We may also hope that it will lead us to a further understanding of the nature of light and interaction between light and matter”. The Raman Effect is a major piece of evidence in favor of the quantum theory. The universality of phenomenon and the advent of laser have made Raman spectroscopy the basic tool in most branches of science and medicine. The Raman Effect is a fundamental nonlinear phenomenon of interest in engineering, nonlinear physics, and applied mathematics, and it may lead to important practical applications as well as to the progress of fundamental nonlinear science. The applications of Raman technologies may be mentioned; such as frequency conversion, the design and development of novel approaches, like the implementation of long distance quasi-lossless transmission schemes, fundamental aspects of nonlinear optics, the interaction of the Raman effect with parametric processes like Four-wave mixing, and how this can be controlled to increase the efficiency of supercontinuum radiation generation. The possibility of shifting energy from one frequency to another using the inherent properties of the material is a very attractive one, and in the field of optical communications it finds its most immediate application in the development of Raman amplifiers. References: 1) C. V. Raman, Molecular Diffraction of Light, University of Calcutta, 1922 2) C. V. Raman and K. S. Krishnan, Nature, 121, (1928) 501-502 3) C. V. Raman, Nature, 121, (1928) 619 4) C. V. Raman and K. S. Krishnan, Nature, 121, (1928) 711 5) C. V. Raman, Indian J. Phys. , 2, (1928) 387-398 6) A. S. Ganesan, Indian J. Phys., 4, (1929-30) 281-348 7) S. Bhagavantam, Indian J. Phys., 5, (1930) 236-307 8) C. V. Raman and K. S. Krishnan, Indian J. Phys., 2, (1928) 399-419 9) C. V. Raman and K. S. Krishnan, Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond., A 122, (1929) 23-35 10) K. W. F. Kohlrausch, Der Smekel-Raman Effekt, Verlag von Julius Springer, Berlin, 1931 11) Nobel Lectures in Physics, 1922-1941, Elsevier Publishing Company; New York, (1965), 263-277

References to establish the dates, location, and importance of the achievement: Minimum of five (5), but as many as needed to support the milestone, such as patents, contemporary newspaper articles, journal articles, or citations to pages in scholarly books. At least one of the references must be from a scholarly book or journal article.

Supporting materials (supported formats: GIF, JPEG, PNG, PDF, DOC): All supporting materials must be in English, or if not in English, accompanied by an English translation. You must supply the texts or excerpts themselves, not just the references. For documents that are copyright-encumbered, or which you do not have rights to post, email the documents themselves to ieee-history@ieee.org. Please see the Milestone Program Guidelines for more information.