NANOFORENSIC - An Emerging Trend in Forensic Investigation

Abstract

In recent years, nanotechnology has been increasingly proven to be a powerful tool in a number of fields including medicine, imaging, energy science, molecular biology, forensic science, etc. The advent of nanotechnology is taking control of atoms and molecule individually, modifying and placing them to use with an adequate degree of accuracy. It deals with the emerging material or devices having a size equal to 100nm or lesser and mainly the study and application of extremely small things and can be used across all the other fields such as chemistry, physics, biology, material science. Nanotechnology refers to the projected ability to construct items from bottom up, using techniques and various tools being developed today to make complete, high-performance products. Two main approaches are used in nanotechnology: "bottom-up approach" and "top-down approach".

In the bottom-up approach, materials and devices are built from molecular components which assemble themselves chemically by principles of molecular recognition. The amount of information that could be stored in devices building from the bottom up would be enormous. In a top-down approach, nano-objects are constructed from larger entities without atomic-level control and are able to see, control individual atoms and molecules. Nanotechnology contributes to forensic science in two ways such as detection and analysis of samples in the nanoscale. Using nanotechnology, the limitation of instruments can be rectified and used it to support the investigation. Nanotechnology has a significant role in various areas of forensic science to investigate: latent fingerprint development, illicit drug identification, explosive detection, nerve gas detection, saliva detection, inorganic pigments identification in a hit-and-run vehicle accident for providing time-bound investigation and accurate results.

Few prominent examples of nanoparticles in forensic are gold nanoparticles, silver nanoparticles, titanium nanoparticles, copper nanoparticles, zinc oxide nanoparticles, silicon dioxide nanoparticles. Among all gold nanoparticle is most commonly used in forensic investigation.