On the use of laser-induced fluorescence for biological agent detection

The uncontrolled spread of biological agents, such as bacteria and viruses, could be hazardous for human health. Despite the interest in detecting their presence, the common methods are usually impracticable, since the diagnosis methods are time-consuming, could be invasive or require a lot of consumables which make the cost unsustainable. A good candidate to perform biological agent detection is the Laser-Induced Fluorescence (LIF) spectroscopy since the emitted spectra are characteristic of the chemical composition of the agent. For this study, some tests with this technique on some biological agents have been performed and the classification and detection performances have been evaluated.