A highly sensitive, compact Raman system without a spectrometer for quantitative analysis of biological samples

We propose here a highly-sensitive, compact Raman system for quantitative analysis of biological samples. The system consists of a semiconductor laser, spherical integration type of cell-holder, Raman shift bandpass filter, photodiode, multimeter and personal computer. It dose not have a spectrometer. Therefore, one can not measure a Raman spectrum by use of the above system, but it is superb for estimating the intensity of a particular Raman band. In other words, the system is very suitable for quantitative analysis of a particular sample. We applied this system to determine the concentrations of glucose and acetone in urine containing glucose and/or acetone artificially. A Raman band at 1130.5 cm(-1) due to glucose and that at 796.5 cm(-1) due to acetone were used for the above purpose. The correlation coefficient between the concentration and the Raman intensity and the detection limit were found to be 0.992 and 31 mg/dl, respectively, for glucose. Those for acetone were calculated to be 0.991 and 8 mg/dl, respectively.