Can Raman spectroscopy be used to analyze radiation damage of bimolecular systems? A pre-study using glycine.

For this project we have analyzed if Raman spectroscopy can be used as a tool to analyze how DNA basemolecules, solved in water, get affected by low energy X-rays. This has been done in two parts by analyzing the amino acid glycine. In the first part Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) was used to see if an enhancement of theRaman signals of glycine, whiles it was solved in water, could be made. This was tested by both measuring the glycine and water substance as a liquid drop, and as the substance was dried onto the enhancing nanoparticle substrate. The results show that SERS did not give a strong enough enhancement to be able to use this tool for radiation damage analysis at a concentration of 0.1 molar glycine in water. Part two of the project tried to look at the effect of x-ray irradiation on the Raman signals of crystalline glycine, as well as crystalline glycine mixed with cesium iodine. The radiation source used was a copper diffractometer with a K-alpha energy of E = 8.04 keV. The results from the irradiation do not show a clear change in peak intensity with irradiation time. The reasons for the results were unclear, but a possible reason could be due to inhomogeneous samples. In conclusion the method needs to be developed further. More measurements and further analysis would be ideal to build a stronger conclusion. Preferably, the measurements should also be tried with the DNA bases to get a more clear picture.