This paper describes a self-contained, portable Raman instrument that has been developed for environmental and homeland defense applications. The instrument consists of a 830-nm diode laser for excitation, an acousto-optic tunable filter (AOTF) for wavelength discrimination, and an avalanche photodiode for detection. The primary component of this system is the AOTF and it has been selected based on its spectral range along with its high resolution, ~7.5 cm^-1. Software has been developed in house using C programming language for controlling the instrument (i.e. the AOTF frequency, the signal acquisition, etc.). Evaluation of this instrument has been performed by analyzing several standard samples and comparing to a conventional Raman system. In addition to system evaluation, this paper will also discuss potential applications of this instrument to trace detection of hazardous chemicals using the Raman Integrated Tunable Sensor (RAMiTs) coupled with surface-enhance Raman scattering process.

Date Published: 7 December 2004
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 5586, Advanced Environmental, Chemical, and Biological Sensing Technologies II, (7 December 2004); doi: 10.1117/12.580125

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 5586:
Advanced Environmental, Chemical, and Biological Sensing Technologies II
Tuan Vo-Dinh; Gunter Gauglitz; Robert A. Lieberman, Editor(s)