Potential Applications of Carbon Dots in Development of Latent Fingerprint: A Critical Review

Abstract

Nanotechnology is brightest future of science and rapidly emerging in every filed of science such as Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, Pharmacy, molecular medicine and even in forensic science. This field already developed various nanomaterials for with biomedical and analytical fields and forensic fingerprinting. Carbon dots are such developed materials which have great biocompatibility, fluorescence properties, inertness, photo-bleaching resistance, low toxicity withcosteffectiveandenvironmentalfriendlyandhaspotentialapplicationinlatentfingerprint development.Carbondotscanbesynthesizedbyeasyprocesseswithchemicalusingcitricacid L-glutathione,thiourea,eggwhites,coffeegrounds,egg whites, applejuice,aspirin,andeven from chocolate. Various color of carbon dot can be produced by specific chemical reactions. The majority are red, green, blue and yellow color emission type under different excitation light frequencies and used in both method as spray and powder form. Carbon dots method are rapid and easy to perform, latent print can be developed from water soaked evidence and can be preserved for very long time. Latent prints can be developed form porous, non-porous and semi-porous substrates, which have potential to show primary, secondary and tertiary details forfingerprintevenafteraprolongageingupto60days.Developedprintcanbeseenbynaked eye and photographed by digital camera under UV light. Hence. Carbon dots have wide application and potential to develop any kind of latent prints and can be used in daily routing of crime scenesearch.