Nanomanipulation with nanospray MS for document and ink analysis

The focus in the present study is to develop an analytical scheme for the direct extraction and analysis of components in ink using a nanomanipulation-coupled to a nanospray mass spectrometer.  This approach presents a minimally invasive extraction procedure of inks from questioned document for analysis.

Microscopic view of the ink line and nano-capillary tip set up for extraction.

Quantitative analysis for ESDA on latent images

This project studies the optimum conditions to visulalize indented writing using an ESDA device.

Moisture content versus mean darkness of the samples shows best images were produced when the moisture content of paper was between 11-13% regardless of handwriting pressure.