Application of Raman spectroscopy for study of nitrogen containing compounds for astrobiological purposes

IV ABSTRACT This PhD thesis was focused on the evaluation of the application of Raman spectroscopy as an analytical method used specifically for research on selected nitrogen containing compounds in experiments, that are important in the astrobiological context. The results of experiments provided insight into the advantages as well as the limitations of the method in several applications that are expected to be encountered in the future planetary exploration missions with astrobiological context use, and where the Raman spectroscopy is proposed as an advantageous method. The Raman spectroscopy was tested in various experimental tasks. Several nitrogen containing minerals were analysed, where the features such as the indestructive analysis, small laser spot size, and selection of the excitation source enabled to acquire spectra of minerals even with miniature sample sizes, also the band assignment was published for the first time for some of the studied minerals. Artificially prepared samples of biomarkers mixed in mineral matrices were analysed to test the ability of the method to analyse complex mixtures: three biomarkers and two evaporitic minerals were analysed with a portable instrument, and all compounds were unambiguously detected. When the samples contained more of the similar compounds with many..