Raman spectroscopy provides information about molecular vibrations that can be used for sample identification and quantitation. The technique involves shining a monochromatic light source (i.e. laser) on a sample and detecting the scattered light. The majority of the scattered light is of the same frequency as the excitation source; this is known as Rayleigh or elastic scattering. A very small amount of the scattered light (ca. 10-5% of the incident light intensity) is shifted in energy from the laser frequency due to interactions between the incident electromagnetic waves and the vibrational energy levels of the molecules in the sample. Plotting the intensity of this "shifted" light versus frequency results in a Raman spectrum of the sample.