Design and implementation of a low-cost portable Raman spectrometer

Abstract

Non-invasive medical diagnosis has become popular due to the possibility of detecting illnesses in vivo and in real time this technique, often referred to as "optical biopsy", comprises several optical techniques such as thermography, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, optical coherence tomography and Raman spectroscopy among others. Particularly Raman spectroscopy is an optical technique based on the inelastic scattering of light that can detect disease markers, this technique has been successfully used to detect several types of diseases, however the high price of a Raman spectrometer makes it difficult for the medical community to adopt its use as a common diagnostic procedure. In this work a Raman spectroscopy system was designed and fabricated from low-cost readily available components. The system was characterized and the Raman spectra obtained was compared to commercial systems. Results show that it is possible to fabricate a custom Raman system with the desired optical configuration for non-invasive optical diagnosis at low costs and portable size.