Focusing on the infrared region: A critical review of infrared-related materials and techniques for the development, imaging, and analysis of latent fingerprints

Abstract

It is a fundamental task in forensic science to utilize latent fingerprints to identify individuals who may be involved in a crime. Over the past two decades, owing to multiple benefits of using infrared-related materials and techniques in the development, imaging, and analysis of latent fingerprints, numerous studies have been performed to solve substantial challenges faced by conventional methods in this area. In this review, to appeal the communities in related research fields and to provide the wider scientific community with broad implications, comprehensive review and detailed discussion of the infrared-related materials and techniques are presented according to the imaging modes applied to capture and analyze fingerprints, namely, NIR to VIS mode, UV-VIS to NIR mode, NIR to NIR mode, and IR absorption/reflection mode. Finally, based on the overview of recent progress, three main aspects that require to be explored and improved in the research of this field are proposed.