W. F. Finney

W. F. Finney, published in full as William F. Finney, collaborated with M. D. Morris on using Raman spectroscopy to study bone under mechanical loading. Their experiment connected a change in a Raman spectrum to deformation of a living material's mineral component, rather than merely identifying its chemical ingredients.^[ref]

The apparatus held hydrated mouse femora in a mechanical tester on a Raman spectroscopy microprobe stage. A load cell monitored the applied loading, which stayed below yielding, while the experiment followed shifts of a phosphate vibrational band. This joined a mechanical measurement to a molecular-scale probe of the loaded bone.^[ref]

For an original illustration of the mechanical scale, a specimen segment of initial length $10\mathrm{mm}$ that extends by $0.02\mathrm{mm}$ has engineering strain $\epsilon =0.02/10=0.002$, or $0.2\%$. A simultaneous Raman shift measurement could track how a molecular vibration changes during that extension. The numerical extension is illustrative; it is not a reported value from Finney's experiment.