Shifted Excitation Raman Difference Spectroscopy applied to extraterrestrial particles returned from the asteroid Itokawa

Two extraterrestrial particles from the asteroid Itokawa are investigated applying Shifted Excitation Raman Difference Spectroscopy (SERDS). These particles were returned by the Hayabusa mission of the Japanese Space Agency JAXA. For SERDS a diode laser based microsystem light source at 488 nm is used for excitation. It has been found that fluorescence signals masking the Raman spectral features of interest can be substantially separated by applying SERDS. Therefore, SERDS improves the information obtained from the Raman spectra and enables a reliable analysis for investigations on extraterrestrial samples.