New Raman spectrometer designed for document examination

Foster & Freeman have launched Foram 685, an easy-to-use Raman spectrometer designed specifically for forensic document examination. The Foram 685 offers examiners a completely new technique for discriminating inks which are chemically different but which look visually identical,providing valuable evidence of fraudulent alterations to documents. The new instrument is designed to augment the company's very successful VSC2000 workstation.

With the VSC2000 a document examiner attempts to detect the use of different inks on a document by revealing variations in their near infrared reflectance or luminescence emissions. However, some types of ink cannot be differentiated in this way and other techniques are required.

Raman spectrometry produces highly structured spectra which reflect the complex molecular bonds in the materials under examination. It is potentially a very valuable aid to the discrimination of visually similar materials and a number of attractions make it ideal for routine use; analysis can be conducted in minutes and undertaken in situ, particularly valuable for documents where inks are adsorbed onto paper. And since the Foram 685 has been designed specifically for document examination, proficiency in using the technique can be gained in a very short time.

Although discovered in 1924, this exciting technology has, until now, been too expensive to adopt for many applications since it exploits an extremely weak type of emission that requires sophisticated instrumentation to detect. However, with the advent of low cost, solid state components and through the application of sophisticated signal processing techniques, made possible by the exceptional power of modern desk top computers, Foster & Freeman's engineers have designed the more affordable and cost effective Foram 685. Extensive research, undertaken by the company's scientists, has confirmed the effectiveness of the technique and a research report on applications in document examination is available on request.

The company is also pleased to acknowledge the support of the UK government which contributed significant funds to this project through a SPUR grant awarded by the Department of Trade & Industry.

Back