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Raman spectroscopy is used for the identification of unknowns and in material characterization studies such as crystallinity, strain and polymorphism and is applicable to a wide variety of organic and inorganic materials.

The relatively small spatial resolution provided by the visible laser (about 1 micrometer) allows us to identify contaminants and inclusions in situ in many cases. Applications of Raman spectroscopy which we have performed here include studies of carbon-based materials, contaminants in pharmaceutical products, identification of polymorphs in pharmaceutical actives, forensics, pigment identification, phase identification in minerals, crystallinity effects in polymers and identification of layers in laminated materials. Quantitative analyses have also been performed.

Instrumentation:

McCrone Associates has a Renishaw System 1000 Raman system coupled to an Olympus BH-2 microscope and equipped with a 514 nm argon ion laser and a 782 nm diode laser, edge filters with 200 cm-1 cutoff, a high precision grating for continuous extending scanning without spectra stitching, and a Peltier-cooled CCD detector. The system is operated using Renishaw WIRE software coupled with GRAMS/NT.