The Phenomenon of Wings and the Vibrational Raman Effect in Benzene and Naphthalene Crystals

Abstract

As has been pointed out in our previous note¹, the continuous spectrum (wings) observed around the primary line at the scattering of light by liquids consists of two parts. The central part just near the primary line (c. 20 cm.¹ in diphenyl ether) gains in intensity when the liquid is heated, whereas the outer part remains unaltered. By comparison of the Raman effect in liquid and crystalline diphenyl ether, we have shown that the later part is not due to the rotation of molecules in the liquids as usually accepted, but is produced by the vibrational Raman lines caused by slow vibrations (probably characteristic for the crystal lattice of diphenyl ether). It seemed to us of interest to include in our experiments also the crystal of benzene because the phenomenon of wings of this substance in the liquid state has been carefully studied by many observers².