Raman Spectroscopy of Biomaterials

As an advanced analytical tool, Raman spectroscopy has enormous potential in the field of biomaterials science for both basic and applied research. However, its application in biomedical sciences is yet in its infancy because Raman physics currently lacks effective working algorithms, mainly due to its complexity. Future exploitations will undoubtedly lead to improved preventive care, effective disease diagnosis, new curative therapies, and reduced healthcare expenditures. Raman methods comprehensively encompass a number of technologies for quantitative assessments of crystal structures, domain textures, crystallographic alignments, off-stoichiometric chemical drifts, and mechanical stresses in both synthetic and natural biomaterials. Each of these properties governs the fundamental interactions of both biotic and abiotic materials within the human host. Understanding such relations is essential for the design and deployment of effective medicinal treatments and biomedical devices. This book rigorously establishes some key aspects of Raman basic science in the biomedical field and discusses the physics governing its application to both synthetic and natural biomaterials by disentangling spectrally convoluted dependencies on crystal orientation, chemical and stoichiometric alterations, and mechanical stress. A completely new set of working algorithms is given to extract structural, chemical, and mechanical information from the experimentally collected spectra, while orientation distribution functions are employed to obtain statistical descriptions of crystallographic textures in practical applications.