Raman and photoluminescence spectroscopy analysis of gamma irradiated human hair

Abstract

Preliminary study has been made of black human hair, carbon concentration of some 53%, a model in examining the potential of hair of the human head in retrospective and emergency biodosimetry applications, also offering effective atomic number near to that of water. The hair samples were exposed to $$^{60}$$ 60 Co gamma rays, delivering doses from 0 to 200 Gy. Structural alterations were observed, use being made of Raman and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. Most prominent among the features observed in the first-order Raman spectra are the D and G peaks, appearing at 1370 $${{\pm }} 18\,{\hbox {cm}}^{-1}$$ ± 18 cm - 1 and 1589 $${{\pm }} 11\,{\hbox {cm}}^{-1}$$ ± 11 cm - 1 respectively, the intensity ratio $${{{I}}}_{{{D}}}{{/}}{{{I}}}_{{{G}}}$$ I D / I G indicating dose-dependent defects generation and annealing of structural alterations. The wavelengths of the PL absorption and emission peaks are found to be centred at $$592.3 \pm 12.5$$ 592.3 ± 12.5 nm and $$1077.4 \pm 7.3$$ 1077.4 ± 7.3 nm, respectively. The hair samples mean band gap energy ($${{{E}}}_{{{g}}}$$ E g ) post-irradiation was found to be $$2.10 \pm 0.04$$ 2.10 ± 0.04 eV, of the order of a semiconductor and approximately two times the $${{{E}}}_{{{g}}}$$ E g of other carbon-rich materials reported via the same methodology.

Structural and defect changes in black carbon charcoal irradiated with gamma ray

“…Thus, the novel goal of this study is to look into low linear energy transfer (0.2 keV) irradiations for various types of black carbon charcoal using 60 Co gamma rays in order to focus on medical applications of ionizing radiation as a passive radiation sensor, due to lower cost carbon-based material, low dependence on photon energy and has an effective atomic number (Z eff ) equivalent to human soft tissue (7.4). The latter is in accordance with previous carbon studies by the member of groups, focusing on the use of other carbon-rich materials (pencil, hair etc) for radiotherapy dose regime applications, examining the structural changes induced by sample formation and ionizing radiation (Lam et al, 2021;Bradley et al, 2021;Nawi et al, 2020Abdul Sani et al, 2020). Most prominently, immediate apparent is that readily available charcoal samples can serve as the foundation for a low-cost yet highly effective system for studying radiation-driven changes in carbon-based composites, as well as a dosimetric probe of skin dose, with its an effective atomic number (Z eff ) similar to that of human soft tissue, pointing to favourable measurement of dose deposited in the human body.…”

“…4 demonstrates the I D /I G intensity ratio as a function of irradiation dose for each type of charcoal samples irradiated from 0 to 10 Gy of gamma-ray. It is apparent that all the graph show a fluctuating pattern in respect of the I D /I G intensity ratio across the entire dose range study, showing a pattern familiar in prior investigations of carbon-rich materials such as pencil lead (Nawi et al, 2020, pyrolytic graphite (Abdul , hair (Lam et al, 2021) and graphite sheet (Bradley et al, 2021). The observed oscillatory pattern of the Raman I D /I G ratio has previously also been reported by this group for a variety of graphitic materials, both for wave and particle irradiations, the range depending on the surface to volume ratio and linear energy transfer (LET).…”

New approach for hair keratin characterization: Use of the confocal Raman spectroscopy to assess the effect of thermal stress on human hair fibre

“…Other spectroscopic techniques are finding their way into the cosmetic field and have been proposed for the investigation of human hair fibres. Both Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and Raman spectroscopy have been extensively used to probe hair chemical composition and keratin structural changes under different treatments [11][12][13][14]. These powerful approaches represent analytical, nondestructive and dynamic methods to investigate changes in whole hair fibre with only little biomass and without any labeling or sample preparation or extraction.…”

“…Previous research suggests that FTIR spectroscopy can be proposed, for example, for distinguishing hair follicle tissue layers based on their molecular structure, for discriminating untreated from treated hair, or also for monitoring the chemical changes related to the aging effect of human hair fibre [11,16]. In parallel, Raman spectroscopy has been used successfully to study L-Phenylalanine and hydrolyzed egg white protein penetration into keratin fibres, to detect the structural change in keratin after chemical treatments or more recently by our team to analyse conformation changes in human hair keratin after active ingredient application [10,14,16].…”

Long-term, non-invasive FTIR detection of low-dose ionizing radiation exposure

“…For example, in vivo electron paramagnetic resonance biodosimetry has been used for biodosimetry in nail 41 , 42 , hair 43 and teeth 44 . Raman and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy were used to study radiation effects on human hair samples 45 . Here we use the FTIR spectroscopy imaging approach to non-invasively detect and track simultaneously changes in the composition and molecular structure of the various cellular components in the ear pinnae of living mice post exposure.…”