Coke or Diet Coke? (Conference Presentation)

Abstract

Raman spectroscopy is a powerful tool in biomedical imaging and sensing; however, despite all its undisputed advantages, its intrinsic sensitivity is relatively low, and its specificity is rather limited due to overlapping vibrational bands. Fluorescence background often masks the useful signal, and dark rooms are normally required to avoid an unnecessary background. In this report, we will present our recent efforts on improving reliability and simplicity of deep UV Raman spectroscopy, which provides much improved sensitivity and specificity of detection (for example, we can routinely distinguish Coke® from Diet Coke® in a matter of milliseconds).