What's the difference between inelastic X-rays scattering and Raman scattering?

Question

In solids, inelastic scattering of X-rays can produce or absorb a phonon, which is equivalent to saying that solid ends up in excited vibrational level ( or if it was in a vibrational level to begin with, it ends up in ground state). But isn't that exactly what happens in Raman scattering (stokes and antistokes). As Raman spectroscopy uses light from X-ray to Infra-red in all regions, what is the difference between X-ray scattering and Raman and IR spectroscopy? And what is X-ray raman spectroscopy?

Answer 1

Raman Scattering is indeed an inelastic scattering process. Raman scattering is synonymous to inelastic scattering of photons.

Raman scattering is usually done in IR region, the reason being vibrational spectra of most molecules are in this region. That doesn't mean Raman spectroscopy can't be done with high frequency waves though, in fact enhanced X-ray Raman spectroscopy (called Resonant Raman Spectroscopy) is also pretty common nowadays, especially in crystalline solids which have excitation spectra in that range.