Electron-phonon coupling in perovskites studied by Raman Scattering

Raman scattering is an unique technique for characterization and quantification of electron-phonon, spin-phonon and spin-lattice coupling in many of the currently prominent compounds like multiferroics and manganites. In manganites, it is understood now that a phase separated landscape with coexisting metallic and insulating regions exist in most of the compounds and application of small external perturbation causes an alteration in this landscape. In such scenario, local metallic regions grow suddenly at the expense of insulating regions below the magnetic ordering temperature. Such regions can be characterized effectively using Raman scattering measurements where delocalized electrons couple with the adjacent phonon peaks giving a Fano resonance in the form of asymmetric line shape.