Laser-damaging as a useful tool for materials characterization by Raman microscopy

The deliberate transformation of materials caused by laser radiation in Raman microscopy is used for a better deduction of structural information of a materials system. Investigation of transformed material allows the characterization of the molecular structure of the genuine material. A special advantage is the transformation of amorphous phases to crystalline structures by laser-induced oxidation. Also, the crystallization into different crystalline phases in order to obtain spectra that can be interpreted with more reliability will be possible. Titanium oxides formed tribochemically as reaction products in wear scars, tribologically stressed ADLC hard coatings or potentiodynamically produced TirCarPrO layers were modified by laser-induced crystallization or oxidation. Raman analysis of these materials provide results that cannot be deduced from the spectra of the untreated materials. q1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved