[Resonance Raman Spectral Properties Studies of Beta-carotene in Solution]

Beta-carotene is an important kind of polyene biomolecules, which has significant applications on researching optoelectronic and functional materials. In-situ high pressure Raman spectra of beta-carotene are measured in CS2 solution and water respectively at pressure range from 0-0.60 GPa. Then we compared both of them the Raman shift and CC bond of the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the Raman spectra. It is therefore concluded that both of the samples' Raman shift moved to the high wave number and the full width at half maximum increased depending of the pressure. The experiment phenomena were interpreted by the theory of "coherent weakly damped electronic-lattice vibration model" and "effective conjugation length model". The mechanism is that the beta-carotene is compressed and has the lower structure order, shorte the effective conjugation length, decreased Raman active, weaker the coherent weakly damping CC bond vibration in high pressure. Because of the CC bond length become short, so the Raman spectra are found to blueshift. The CC bond of the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the Raman spectra increased is attributed to the increase of difference in C--C and C==C bond lengths. Moreover, due to dissolving in non-polar CS2 solvent, the beta-carotene encounters the interaction of the surrounding solvent molecules. So the dispersion force interaction between solute and solvent is more sensitive to pressure. Then it makes that the slop of Raman shift and the full width at half maximum in the CS2 solution are faster than dissolved in water with increasing pressure. This paper provides an application value for research on molecular structure change under the external field and the presence form of polyenes biomolecules in the solvent.