Researchers at South Dakota School
of Mines & Technology and the University of South
Dakota in Vermillion have received a grant of more than $840,000 from the National
Institute of Justice to research the
development of a handheld device that will read fingerprints and potentially
collect DNA. The device, which might look like a handheld bar code reader or be
attached to a smartphone, uses nanoparticles and infrared light to detect
latent fingerprints on surfaces where fingerprint extraction has traditionally
been difficult.
“We’re designing the whole system,” says Bill Cross,
Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering at SD Mines. “This also could
potentially connect via the internet to various fingerprint databases and
produce real time results at the scene of the crime or back in the forensic
lab.”
Traditional development of fingerprints has limitations due
to several factors, such as the surface where fingerprints are found. Tools
with neon colored handles, for example, don’t work well with some current
methods for enhancing fingerprints because the texture and color of the handle can
interfere with the chemicals and wavelengths of light used to visualize the fingerprint.
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