The deliberate transformation of materials caused by laser radiation in Ram
an microscopy is used for a better deduction of structural information of a
materials system. Investigation of transformed material allows the charact
erization of the molecular structure of the genuine material. A special adv
antage is the transformation of amorphous phases to crystalline structures
by laser-induced oxidation. Also, the crystallization into different crysta
lline phases in order to obtain spectra that can be interpreted with more r
eliability will be possible. Titanium oxides formed tribochemically as reac
tion products in wear scars, tribologically stressed ADLC hard coatings or
potentiodynamically produced Ti/Ca/P/O layers were modified by laser-induce
d crystallization or oxidation. Raman analysis of these materials provide r
esults that cannot be deduced from the spectra of the untreated materials.
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