Introduction of Forensic Nanotechnology as Future Armour

Forensic Science is an interdisciplinary subject that uses principles and methodologies of various subjects including chemistry, biology, physics, geology, psychology, social science and engineering to help law enforcement agencies to enforce criminal laws and regulations to resolve civil and criminal cases. Body fluids, fingerprints, footprints, illicit drugs, explosives etc. are the evidences that can be found at the scene of crime in trace amount. These evidences are first analysed through screening and then confirmatory methods. During this process, the probability of sample loss is very high, especially when a sample amount is inadequate and therefore does not meet minimum requirement to analyse it. Generally, scientists discuss new-fangled nanotechnology research and its conversation turns to the commercial aspects or potential issues around health, safety, and the environment. In recent years, some of them have shown their interest to integrate nanotechnology with basic sciences and applied for forensic purposes, which are shifting the paradigm of forensic investigation process. Introduction of Forensic Nanotechnology as Future Armour is the first comprehensive book to consider both fundamental and applied aspects of forensic nanotechnology. This emerging field of forensic science investigates real-time crime scenes and terrorist activities, inquiries, detects the presence of explosive materials, biological indicators, document preservation, fingerprint enhancement and food adulteration using nanomaterial. Scientists and researchers are working on nanotechnology applications that may steer the power of forensic investigation, but the challenges to bring them from lab to the courtroom remain persistent. Moreover, some crucial concerns in forensic science such as analysis cost and time, methods' effectiveness and wide availability and results' accuracy and reliability are creating obstacles in forensic investigation and security. In this book we requested to enrich the scientific content as state-of-the-art in terms of application of nanotechnology in forensic science. In this way, all chapters will emphasise the emerging field of research to solve crime with the help of nanotechnology in various fields of forensic science like detecting explosives, biological indicators, document preservation, latent fingerprint and food adulteration. The integration of laboratory processes onto a nano platform is conceivably the most interesting advancement of nanotechnology highlighted in this book and some more issues like recent research developments, challenges and future opportunities are also addressed in this book. The book is written for a wide readership including researchers, undergraduate and graduate students from diverse backgrounds such as chemistry, materials science and nanotechnology engineering, physics, life sciences, forensic science, and biomedical engineering. It can be used not only as a textbook but also as a review and reference book. However, because many other nano technological applications for forensic analysis are yet to be studied, this book can be helpful to explore new opportunities. We hope that the chapters of this book will provide the reader with valuable insight as a revolutionary, protective tool in the fields of virtopsy, crime scene investigation, identification, forensic biology and toxicology. We also hope that after reading this book, researchers around the world will be motivated to enter into the field of forensic nanotechnology.