Most materials have a Raman fingerprint regardless of whether they are in liquid, gas, or solid forms. Picture 1 is a spectra of the health food store supplement known as Creatine.  Raman may be used to both identify chemicals and quantify chemical compositions. Recent advances in detectors (CCDs used in common digital cameras), lasers (diode-­based), and filters (wavelength- selective coatings) have enabled these systems to be made less expensively with greater performance and ruggedness. For these reasons, they have been widely adopted as field­ based devices to check material purity, identify unknown hazardous chemicals as well as to increase digital bandwidth over optical lines in the telecommunications industry.

• It is a non-contact technology, requiring only an optical port to acquire a sample measurement. This prevents any modification of the substance by its being tested.
• Because Raman spectrometers can do their work through fiber-optic lines, remote analysis of samples, away from often-dangerous working conditions, is feasible.
• Raman's basic design is largely heat insensitive, allowing measurements taken at very high temperatures to be compared with ease to room temperature measurements. Processes with temperatures in excess of 200 degrees C are difficult to measure with conventional technologies and are often ignored or require extensive sample conditioning systems that become more complex and maintenance-intensive than the equipment they were designed to protect.
• It is highly selective, meaning it can distinguish between very similar compounds easily.