Abstract:
ABSTRACT
Raman spectroscopy (RS) is a well-known optical technique for the study of
molecular constituents of samples. However, many RS systems designed are
usually immobile, quite cumbersome, and/or relatively expensive limiting the
extensive use of this technique. In this study, we report a simple low-cost RS
system designed with a 445 nm diode laser source, an absorptive edge filter, a
USB2000 spectrometer and other relatively affordable auxiliary optical
components. This makes our system suitably cost efficient for non-invasive, non-
destructive objective evaluation of a sample matrix to determine its molecular
constituents. Additionally, a computational procedure known as the Second
Derivative Method for Raman Peak Recognition and Range Independent
background subtraction Algorithm (SDM-RPR-RIA) was included for the
recovery of Raman Signals from the fluorescence contaminated signals observed
with the system. The low-cost RS system was employed to determine the Raman
spectra of several known chemical samples. Identified functional groups including
Amide (NH), organic acid (COOH), alcohol (ROH), hydroxyl (OH), methyl
(CH3) and methylene (CH2) have all been established, based on their peak
parameters, which is consistent with known results in literature. Measurements
from our developed system, besides molecular identification, indicate that the
developed low cost RS system setup is equally useful for polarisation and
calibration studies. It is expected that the developed low cost RS system setup will become a suitable cost effective alternative to commercial Raman systems for use in academic, industrial settings, and for other novel applications among
developing countries.
