In situ temperature control in Raman microscopy – Hot or Not?

In the last year, students had the following task at our advanced lab exercise:
“In our current laboratory exercise research project, we are trying to reactivate a heating/cooling stage for in situ heating experiments that has not been used at our institute for a while. The stage when fully equipped is build for temperature from liquid nitrogen cooling up to about 500 K. In each lab exercise, we will focus on two things. First to setup an additional part of the stage and second to produce some in situ results on interesting samples. Our goal is to demonstrate that even in the limited time available during a lab exercise it is possible to gradually setup new experimental equipment and produce good quality results.”

In several lab exercises we have fully activated the heating/cooling stage and its entire temperature range is now available. In addition we have analyzed the behavior of several samples as a function of temperature, focusing on intrinsic changes, destruction of the sample at high temperatures and the sensitivity to the laser beam. On this poster, we will present a selection of the most interesting results of each of the four groups that participated in the exercise.