A detailed theoretical treatment of the second-order Raman efficiency is gi
ven for incident photon energies below an excitonic resonance. The Wannier
excitons are considered as intermediate states in the scattering process. B
y using the Green's function method, the expression for the Raman efficienc
y is obtained. The contributions of the two sequences of the intermediate s
tates, s-s-s and s-p-s, are analyzed. The second-order Raman efficiency is
calculated for CdS. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.