Raman is seeing increasing use in the pharmaceutical industry to analyse products in final form. Typical samples include heterogeneous blended powders and tablets. For this type of product the small Raman sampling spot size can be an advantage but also a potential challenge. This article describes one example that takes advantage of the small spot size. The second example shows an effective strategy for obtaining representative spectra from heterogeneous tablets. The advantages of Raman spectroscopy include ease of sampling, the ability to sample through plastic packaging and non-destructive analysis. These features make this technique particularly attractive for pharmaceutical applications. Raman is highly sensitive not only to small changes in chemical composition, but also to different polymorph, crystalline and amorphous forms. Typical pharmaceutical samples include heterogeneous blended powders and tablets. Since the particle size of the components in these samples can be as large as 100 (mu)m, a dispersive Raman microscope with a 1 (mu)m sampling spot is ideal for mapping the distribution of excipients and active ingredients. If, however, the purpose is to collect a representative spectrum as a quality check, the small spot size can be a disadvantage.
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