Applications - miniRaman spectrometer

For research, industry, universities and consumers

in-vivo skin diagnostics

In the last years, Raman spectroscopy has shown to be a reliable technique for different skin disease such as cancer and atopic dermatitis. This technique is non-invasive and can provide several information regarding the molecular composition of the surface of the skin and up to several hundred micrometers in depth. However, the instruments are still slow, and bulky. Consequently, there is still the need of an instrument that can be used in the clinical practice and that, in future, patients will use constantly and easily at home in order to evaluate their therapy and to know in advance the triggering of the disease. This will help the diagnosis and the monitoring of a disease reducing time and costs for doctor check-ups. Therefore, the quality of life for patients will improve.

Our miniRaman MRs has the same dimension as a car keys, cheap and as sensitive as research grade Raman spectrometers. We apply miniRaman MRs for measuring water, lipids, proteins and other compounds in healthy and debilitated skins.

Illustration of in-vivo skin measurements by miniRaman MRs

a) Close view of miniRaman MRs, b) Screenshot of the miniRaman´s software during skin measurements and c) miniRaman MRs measurements using Android app

a) Raman spectrum of lipids and proteins in comparison with the spectrum of water, b) Skin measured using Skinmeter with and without background correction and averaging of 10 repetitions using laser at 785 nm and c) Skin measured using miniRaman MRs with and without background correction and averaging of 10 repetitions using laser at 660 nm.

Exposure time was 1s, laser power was 30mW for all presented spectra obtained from lasers with wavelengths 660nm and 785nm.

Low concentration quantitative measurements in liquid solutions

miniRaman MRs is well suited for quantitative Raman measurements due to patented Raman intensity calibration during each measured spectrum via in-build reference channel.
Here we present miniRaman performance in the terms of sensitivity and reproducibility for the detection and quantification of P-coumaric acid and Serine diluted in water based solutions.

We demonstrate the limit of detection (LoD) at the level of 0.1g/L for P-coumaric acid. This results is challenging to obtain even with reserarch grade Raman spectrometers.

P-coumaric acid (pHCA) Raman spectra: green 0.5 g/L, red 0.25 g/L, purple 0.1 g/L and cyan 0 g/L.

Serine Raman spectra: green 50 g/L, purple 25 g/L, blue 10 g/L and red 0 g/L.