Effect of pressure and temperature on Raman spectra of solids: anharmonicity

This paper gives a brief review of the effect of temperature and pressure on Raman spectra. Anharmonicity, defined by the cubic, quartic and higher terms in the potential expansion, is shown to be responsible for various properties such as dilatation or for variations of wavenumber and half-width of Raman bands with temperature and pressure, or may be strongly involved in phase transitions. This contribution does not pretend to be an exhaustive review on the subject but aims to introduce some basic concepts in a tutorial way before showing how intricated are these manifestations of anharmonicity. Copyright (C) 2003 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.