Portable raman sensor for soil nutrient detection

摘要

An apparatus and method for detecting phosphorus in soil and vegetation are developed. In one embodiment, a portable Raman-based sensor is provided to obtain significant phosphorus absorption band in soils and to determine phosphorus concentrations. The portable sensor can have the capability to measure phosphorus concentrations in wet and dry soil samples as well as fresh and dry vegetations. In one embodiment, the portable sensor of the invention uses a 600 mW laser light source at 785 nm with a full width at half maximum of about 0.2 nm and a spectrometer that covers 340 and 3640 cm⁻¹. Software, written in Visual C++, and partial least squares analysis were used to produce calibration and predictions models.