Raman spectroscopy is widely used in chemistry and physics. Because vibrational frequencies are specific to a molecule’s chemical bonds and symmetry, Raman provides a fingerprint to identify molecules. Raman spectrometer is one of the most efficient methods in chemical and physics analysis, short analysis time, identify molecular structure and composition.

Raman spectroscopy is used in chemistry to identify molecules and study chemical bonding and intra-molecular bonds. Because vibrational frequencies are specific to a molecule’s chemical bonds and symmetry (the fingerprint region of organic molecules is in the wavenumber range 500 ~ 1500 cm⁻¹), Raman provides a fingerprint to identify molecules. For instance, Raman and IR spectra were used to determine the vibrational frequencies of SiO, Si₂O₂, and Si₃O₃ based on normal coordinate analyses. Raman is also used to study the addition of a substrate to an enzyme.

In solid-state physics, Raman spectroscopy is used to characterize materials, measure temperature, and find the crystallographic orientation of a sample. As with single molecules, a solid material can be identified by characteristic phonon modes. Information on the population of a phonon mode is given by the ratio of the Stokes and anti-Stokes intensity of the spontaneous Raman signal. Raman spectroscopy can also be used to observe other low-frequency excitations of a solid, such as plasmons, magnons, and superconducting gap excitations. Distributed temperature sensing (DTS) uses the Raman-shifted backscatter from laser pulses to determine the temperature along optical fibres. The orientation of an anisotropic crystal can be found from the polarization of Raman-scattered light concerning the crystal and the polarization of the laser light if the crystal structure’s point group is known.