Revealing silent vibration modes of nanomaterials by detecting anti-Stokes hyper-Raman scattering with femtosecond laser pulses

Abstract

We proposed a scheme in which normal Raman scattering is coupled with hyper-Raman scattering for generating a strong anti-Stokes hyper-Raman scattering in nanomaterials by using femtosecond laser pulses. The proposal was experimentally demonstrated by using a single-layer MoS₂ on a SiO₂/Si substrate, a 17 nm-thick MoS₂ on an Au/SiO₂ substrate and a 9 nm-thick MoS₂ on a SiO₂–SnO₂/Ag/SiO₂ substrate which were confirmed to be highly efficient for second harmonic generation. A strong anti-Stokes hyper-Raman scattering was also observed in other nanomaterials possessing large second-order susceptibilities, such as silicon quantum dots self-assembled into “coffee” rings and tubular Cu-doped ZnO nanorods. In all the cases, many Raman inactive vibration modes were clearly revealed in the anti-Stokes hyper-Raman scattering. Apart from the strong anti-Stokes hyper-Raman scattering, Stokes hyper-Raman scattering with small Raman shifts was detected during the ablation process of thick MoS₂ layers. It was also observed by slightly defocusing the excitation light. The detection of anti-Stokes hyper-Raman scattering may serve as a new technique for studying the Raman inactive vibration modes in nanomaterials.