Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 February 2011
Single-pulse backwards stimulated Raman and reflected broadband coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy (BSRS and RBBCARS) have been used to measure the vibrational frequency shifts of the 992 cm−1 ring-stretching mode of liquid benzene shock-compressed to pressures up to 1.2 GPa. The resulting shifts of ∼7.5 cm−1/GPa in the dynamic experiments are compared to spontaneous Raman scattering measurements of heated samples compressed in a diamond-anvil cell. RBBCARS was used to simultaneously measure the ring-stretching mode vibrational frequencies of liquid benzene / liquid perdeuterobenzene mixtures shock-compressed to pressures up to 1.53 GPa. Additional experiments that demonstrate the difficulty of using polarization sensitive coherent Raman techniques, such as Raman-induced Kerr effect spectroscopy (RIKES), in shock-compressed samples are described.