ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses electronic and vibrational spectroscopic techniques that are applied in medicine. Nanoscale spectroscopy applications in medicine involve the study of light interaction and propagation through biological tissue. The chapter describes luminescence spectroscopy and atomic absorption spectroscopy. It examines fluorescence spectroscopy and phosphorescence imaging as applied for medical diagnosis. The chapter offers nanoscale vibrational spectroscopy for biomedical applications. It outlines Raman spectroscopy, infrared spectroscopy, and terahertz spectroscopy. The chapter highlights the importance of using each of these techniques in medical applications. It also describes the basic principles behind each technique and their relative advantages and disadvantages. Electronic spectroscopy deals with characterization and applications of energy transitions between two quantum electronic states of an atom or a molecule. With the absorption of energy, an electron of an atom or a molecule may be excited to a quantum level with a higher energy.
