Seminar dr. Giuseppe Pezzotti 17/12/15

Thursday, 17 December 2015 - 3:00 pm
Lecture Room B, F building, via Valerio 2

ABSTRACT:
Raman spectroscopy possesses enormous potentiality for unfolding basic  
and applicative issues in biomaterials science with both large  
economic benefits and promising developments into preventive  
healthcare. The Raman method comprehensively suites a number of  
technological needs for spatially resolved and quantitative  
assessments of crystal structures, domain textures, crystallographic  
alignments, and mechanical stresses in synthetic and natural  
biomaterials. However, the physics underlying the Raman effect  
represents an issue of deep complexity and, in a yet conspicuous lack  
of working algorithms, its applicative development to biomaterial  
structures can be considered in its infancy. This review paper starts  
from basic issues with revisiting some applicative aspects of the  
physics governing the Raman emission in both synthetic and natural  
biomaterials. The main aim of the paper is to explore the possibility  
of disentangling the convoluted dependences of Raman spectra on  
crystal orientation, chemical and stoichiometric alterations, and  
mechanical stress. Working algorithms are newly put forward in an  
explicit form, in order to quantitatively extract structural,  
chemical, and mechanical information from experimentally collected  
confocal/polarized Raman spectra. In the second part of the review,  
systematic characterizations of biomaterials and biomedical devices  
are presented as explicit applications of the developed equations  
according to a unified formalism. Statistical descriptions of  
crystallographic textures, based on orientation distribution  
functions, are also brought from theory to an expanded applicative  
level. They provide an effective link between the intrinsic  
vibrational behavior of single-crystals and experimental data  
collected on real polycrystalline (textured) structures. From a more  
general perspective, this review paper aims at providing rigorous  
spectroscopic foundations and working pathways to the analysis of  
healthy and diseased biogenic tissues, and to the rationalization of  
both functional behavior and structural reliability of the synthetic  
components of biomedical devices.

Leaflet can be downloaded here  
<https://df.units.it/sites/df.units.it/files/Locandina%20Pezzotti.pdf>.