IN SITU DETECTION AND IDENTIFICATION OF TRACE EXPLOSIVES BY RAMAN MICROSCOPY

The innovative design of the newly developed Renishaw Raman Microscope system and its application to the in situ detection and identification of plastic explosives contained in fingerprint samples are presented. Raman microscopy is a nondestructive inspection method. Our experimental results show that Raman spectra and Raman band images can be obtained from explosive particles as small as 1 µm3 in size or 1 picogram in mass. After exploring the full potential of the Raman microscopic technique, the aim of this research is to develop a real-time and field-deployable plastic explosive detection system.