Description

A student completing this module will be able to:
• Describe the opportunities available to photonics technicians in forensic laboratories
involved in Homeland Security.
• Describe the three states of matter.
• Describe the existence of energy levels in atoms.
• Define luminescence, fluorescence, and phosphorescence.
• Describe the decrease in light intensity as light passes through an absorbing medium.
• Give examples of absorption spectra.
• Distinguish between ordinary light and laser light.
• Describe the cautions associated with different classes of lasers.
• Understand the importance of laser safety and the need to use protective gear.
• Describe the lasers used in forensics investigations, their wavelengths and powers.
• Understand the fundamentals of laser use in fingerprint detection.
• Identify different fluorescent dyes used in fingerprint identification.
• Describe the use of film and digital photography.
• Understand the techniques of laser ablation in identifying minute crime-scene samples.
• Understand the fundamentals of laser-based DNA sequencing.
• Describe the use of microscopes in forensic science.
• Understand the basics of laser-based confocal microscopy.
• Understand the fundamentals of 3D image reconstruction.