Chemical Identification with a Portable Raman Analyzer and Forensic Spectral Database*

The last decade has brought much technical and commercial advancement in the field of Raman spectroscopy. More than ten years ago, the analytical community was immersed in the “Raman Renaissance” caused by the development and subsequent commercialization of FTRaman spectroscopy. The coupling of interferometry with 1064 nm Nd:YAG excitation enabled new applications of Raman where previous attempts with visible excitation were hindered by enormous fluorescence backgrounds. It became apparent, however, that while very useful, FT-Raman was not the answer to all Raman applications due to the lower inherent sensitivity and the need for fairly large interferometer systems with precise moving mirrors.