Evidence materials that can be important both for criminal investigations as well as at the stage of the court process may take the form of trace material that cannot be separated easily from the substrate and often contaminated with other substances. Moreover, the practitioners of justice usually demand that the evidence cannot be damaged during the physical and chemical examinations. Thus, the ideal techniques in forensic examinations of such limited amounts of materials are the non-destructive ones, among which microscopic and spectrometric such as scanning electron microscopy hyphenated with X-ray spectrometry are in favour. The potential of this technique for forensic purposes was noticed as soon as the first commercial instrument became available in 1965.¹  This has been firstly due to better resolution, depth of focus and contrast than in optical microscopes being widely used for routine imaging tasks. In the next step, other properties of the scanning electron microscope (SEM) were utilized for enlightening of crimes, i.e. its ability to simultaneously produce several electron beam-induced signals from the specimen, which generate images of surface topography and provide information on the material composition. Combination of SEM with energy-dispersive X-ray microanalysis (EDX) proved to be the most versatile technique in testing materials, as it is capable of processing each specimen signal by various contrast-enhancement methods, such as line scanning, area mapping, qualitative and quantitative elemental analysis as well as automation of some investigative processes.²  Detection of gunshot residue (GSR) particles, collected by the glue-lift technique, is a model example of the detection of the evidence of crime.^3–6  In physical matching and non-destructive analyses of other trace evidence, such as hair, fibres, paint, glass, minerals, metals, some microorganisms and biological species, human bones, chemical substances, etc. the SEM-EDX is a major tool in forensic research and investigation.^7–9  When quantitative analysis of elements present as traces (<1% w/w) or three-dimensional sectioning of the specimens is necessary, the SEM-EDX ought to be complemented with other analytical methods such as X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF)¹⁰  or focused ion beam (IBA)¹¹  techniques. In cases of forensic identification and comparisons of complex materials some complementary techniques might be useful, e.g. molecular spectroscopy techniques such as infrared spectrometry^12,13  and Raman spectrometry¹⁴  or X-ray diffraction methods suitable for characterization of crystalline phases that can be achieved using, e.g. a transmission electron microscope (TEM)¹⁵  or electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) detector that SEM systems can be hyphenated with.¹⁶