Based in Boulder, Colorado, Andrew Kortyna is an established researcher with a background spanning atomic, molecular, and optical physics. Andrew Kortyna’s current specialization is frequency metrology and high-precision laser spectroscopy.
In laser spectroscopy, a laser beam is directed at a physical sample. The sample can absorb or scatter the laser light. The characteristics of the absorbed and scattered light yield insight into the structure and dynamics of the sample. One approach among various techniques is Raman spectroscopy, which measures how monochromatic light scatters from a sample.
The process involves a high-intensity laser (such as an argon-ion laser or solid-state laser) being trained through a system of mirrors and lenses that focuses monochromatic light on the sample. While a majority of the light is either transmitted or scattered by the sample with no change in wavelength, a small portion interacts with the sample and scatters with shifted wavelengths.
The wavelength shift is caused by the interactions between the laser’s light and energy structure of sample. In solids, the light can interact with phonons, which are vibrations that occur naturally in many solids. These phonons behave very much like particles. Energy can be transferred between the vibrations and the laser light, causing the laser beam photons to gaining or losing energy from the phonons. This energy shift causes a change of wavelength that provides information about the system’s phonon modes, as well as the specific molecules structure found within the sample. There are a wide range of techniques that build on this fundamental spectroscopy phenomenon.
Andrew Kortyna 