Advanced procedures in Raman forensic, natural, and cultural heritage studies: Mobile set-up, optics, and data treatment—State of the art and perspectives

In this introduction to the Journal of Raman Spectroscopy special issue “Advanced Raman procedures applied to natural/cultural heritage and forensic questions: Mobile set-up, data treatment and associated techniques,” the aim is to assess the state of the art in the field and to highlight potential new perspectives. The novel approaches employed in the published papers are described and can be grouped as such: application of multivariate statistical analysis to Raman spectra, use of mobile instrumentations directly in situ for both cultural and forensic contexts, tackling with optics and spectral range issues, and coupling with mobile instrumentations based on different analytical techniques.