Furnish and deliver a Vacuum Metal Deposition (VMD) System for latent print development. A VMD system is designed to develop latent prints on a wide range of non-porous, semi-porous and porous surfaces. The system has a chamber to contain items of evidence that can be subjected to lower pressure conditions as a vacuum pump draws out air from the chamber. Very small quantities of gold, zinc and/or silver are then evaporated by heat and introduced into the chamber. This technique is very sensitive and can develop fingerprint ridge detail on items of evidence that have been submerged in water or subjected to high heat such as fired bullet cartridges. The interaction between fingerprint residues and the surface of the substrate creates physical or chemical changes to the surface at a microscopic level. These microscopic changes are visualized by different rates of growth of the deposited metals. The VMD process has the advantage of having a virtually zero effect on any DNA that may be present on the surface of the evidence and can be used to identify areas to sample for touch DNA. The VMD process will not affect the mechanisms of firearms, thereby allowing ballistics testing after VMD processing.
