Raman scattering plays a key role in unraveling the quantum dynamics of graphene, perhaps the most promising material of recent times. It is crucial to correctly interpret the meaning of the spectra. It is therefore very surprising that the widely accepted understanding of Raman scattering, i.e., Kramers-Heisenberg-Dirac theory, has never been applied to graphene. Doing so here, a remarkable mechanism we term"transition sliding" is uncovered, explaining the uncommon brightness of overtones in graphene. Graphene's dispersive and fixed Raman bands, missing bands, defect density and laser frequency dependence of band intensities, widths of overtone bands, Stokes, anti-Stokes anomalies, and other known properties emerge simply and directly.
Keywords: Raman spectroscopy; UV−vis spectroscopy; quantum chemistry; resonance theory; theoretical chemistry.