Planetary mineralogy can be revealed through a variety of remote sensing and in situ investigations that precede any plans for eventual sample return. We briefly review those techniques and focus on the capabilities for on-surface in situ examination of Mars, Venus, the Moon, asteroids, and other bodies. Over the past decade, Raman spectroscopy has continued to develop as a prime candidate for ...

Resonance Raman studies on single wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) show that resonance with cross polarized light, i.e., with the E(mu,mu+/-1) van Hove singularities in the joint density of states needs to be taken into account when analyzing the Raman and optical absorption spectra from isolated SWNTs. This study is performed by analyzing the polarization, laser energy, and diameter dependence of...

Femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy (FSRS) is an emerging molecular structural dynamics technique for functional materials characterization typically in the visible to near-IR range. To expand its applications we have developed a versatile FSRS setup in the ultraviolet region. We use the combination of a narrowband, ~400 nm Raman pump from a home-built second harmonic bandwidth compressor...

Introduction: Cladding-pumped rare-earth-doped fibers and Raman fiber devices have been two of the most compelling advances in the area of fiber amplifiers and lasers in recent years. Both cladding-pumped fibers and Raman fiber devices are primarily high-power devices. Cladding-pumping enables pumping with multi-mode pump sources that deliver high-power at a low cost. The core of the double-cla...

There has been a resurgence in Raman spectroscopy for its application in forensic science. This method allows for the measurement of the inelastic scattering of light due to the vibrational modes of a molecule when irradiated by an intense monochromatic source such as a laser. The Raman technique presents advantages such as its non-destructive nature, its fast analysis time, and the possibility...

Background. Despite recent advances in dental caries prevention, caries is common and remains a serious health problem. Laser irradiation is one of the most common methods in preventive measures in recent years. Raman spectroscopy technique is utilized to study the microcrystalline structure of dental enamel. In this study, FT-Raman spectroscopy was used to evaluate chemical changes in enamel s...

We have designed and demonstrated a standoff Raman system for detecting high explosive materials at distances up to 50 meters in ambient light conditions. In the system, light is collected using an 8-in. Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope fiber-coupled to an f/1.8 spectrograph with a gated intensified charge-coupled device (ICCD) detector. A frequency-doubled Nd : YAG (532 nm) pulsed (10 Hz) laser is...

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is capable to picture the topology of bitumen at a submicrometer level and optical spectroscopy can gather chemical information [1-3]. Here we combine AFM and Raman spectroscopy, which allows a better specification of the chemical origin of bitumen. AFM imaging was performed from the topology, following with Raman imaging from the same area correlating the chemical...