When L.A. County Sheriff’s investigators wanted to match trace fibers or paint chips from a crime scene with those found on a suspect’s car, they sometimes ran them through a micro-spectrometer to analyze color and texture.

If there was a match, deputies knew they probably had their suspect; if not, the hunt started again.

But the clunky micro-spectrometers, while marking a huge advance in technology, had been used sparingly. “It was a real beast of an instrument so user-unfriendly that our analysts were unwilling to use it,” said Sheriff’s Department senior criminologist Lew Bolf.

Two years ago, all that changed when the crime lab purchased a table-top micro-spectrometer from Altadena-based Craic Technologies. This portable machine has been used in dozens of cases.

“It’s not just about nailing the suspect. It’s also here to protect the innocent. If we can eliminate a paint chip or a fiber because it doesn’t match what’s found at the crime scene, that’s also part of the job,” Bolf said.

Law enforcement agencies have become the primary customers for the husband-and-wife team of Paul Martin and Jumi Lee, who launched Craic three years ago in the Los Angeles Business Technology Center incubator (the balance of the sales come from a mix of industrial and research clients).

Besides matching up traces found at crime scenes, these instruments, which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, analyze currency to detect counterfeit bills. They can also ferret out forged documents.

On the industrial side, micro-spectrometers can measure the thickness of coatings on semiconductor chips and verify the colors of pixels on flat-panel screens. They can even tell how much ultraviolet protection a certain sunscreen has.

Conventional spectrometer machines, which have been around since the 1930s, measure light emissions and absorption to determine composition. But they usually cannot analyze anything smaller than a millimeter across; micro-spectrometers can analyze traces with widths far smaller than a human hair.

Before micro-spectrometers came on the scene, crime labs would place fibers or paint chips side-by-side in “comparison” microscopes and then “eyeball” the color variations, according to Ronald Wojciechowski, forensic scientist with Washington State Patrol’s Tacoma Crime Laboratory.

“With lighter-color fibers, we often concluded they were a match. Now, with Craic’s machines giving us spectrum wavelengths, we can see that they really aren’t matches,” Wojciechowski said. “That can keep us out of trouble.”

The road for Martin and Lee has not been smooth. Martin had worked for years at Milipitas-based Nanometrics Inc., one of the companies to first develop micro-spectrometers in the 1980s. Those early machines were very expensive and few crime labs had the funds to buy them. Instead, Nanometrics focused on semiconductors.

During one of the chipmaking downturns, Martin left Nanometrics for a start-up in Massachusetts called SEE Inc., which focused on developing cheaper machines aimed at law enforcement. Lee soon joined him.

In late 2001, Martin and Lee left SEE, which has since closed, to start up their own firm. Martin said the pair wanted to diversify outside law enforcement into research and development applications, especially chemistry research labs at major universities. They briefly formed a consulting firm in Massachusetts before returning to California. They opened the doors of Craic Technologies in early 2002 at the business incubator in Altadena.

In a case now pending in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, SEE founder Philip Tringali has accused Martin and Lee of stealing the firm’s technology and clients and forming their consulting business while still on SEE’s payroll. The complaint alleges that Martin and Lee’s actions caused SEE to be liquidated in 2004. The suit seeks unspecified damages.

Roger Davis, attorney for Martin and Lee, said the charges are without merit and said he intends to file for a dismissal in the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, micro-spectrometers have become an increasingly important tool in the crime lab arsenal, especially with more focus on DNA evidence and analysis of trace elements. “For the last several years, there really have only been two choices for micro-spectrometers for law enforcement agencies, Craic and SEE,” said Bolf.

Craic is now the leading supplier of micro-spectrometers for law enforcement agencies. The company has also made recent inroads into other sectors, such as research universities and industrial applications.

At a chemistry research lab at the University of South Carolina, professor Stephen Morgan has used Craic’s instrument for three years, analyzing thousands of fiber samples for the FBI.

“Until now, most photo-spectrometry has been in visible light. Craic’s machines have the ability to analyze in the ultraviolet, which has greatly expanded our ability to analyze fibers,” Morgan said.

Craic Technologies



Year Founded:

2002


Core Business:

Microscopic spectrum analysis of elements in trace fibers, blood samples, documents, semiconductor coatings


Revenues in 2003:

$2 million


Revenues in 2004:

$4 million


Employees in 2003:

10


Employees in 2004:

12


Goals:

Diversify further into industrial applications, especially semiconductors; relocate into a larger facility


Driving Force:

Need of law enforcement agencies and industry to perform spectroscopic measurements on microscopic samples