The instrument consists of a non-conventional portable Raman spectrometer. Conventional Raman spectrometers detect the molecular composition of the surface of materials, which is essential for their identification. The distinctive feature of this instrument is the simultaneous acquisition of Raman spectra from the material surface and from different depths beneath it, using the non-invasive method Spatially Offset Raman Spectroscopy.
The instrument has never been developed neither by Research Institutions nor by companies. A portable instrument optimized at the millimetric scale (SORS) is developed by Agilent for pharmaceutical and security applications; however, the under development instrument differs for the micrometric scale range of investigation (micro-SORS); the extension of the technique to the micrometric range needs the development of a deeply different technology if compared with that used for portable SORS and the applicability to fields not already explored by conventional SORS. In the non-invasive instruments scenario, the instrument is unique since it is able to provide the molecular composition of the compounds located below the surface, not only their optical properties or elemental composition, thus allowing a unequivocal identification of the target compounds.