Evanescent wave Raman scattering excitation

One can distinguish between methods in which absorption of the evanescent surface wave in different wavelength regions is measured (these are often called attenuated total reflection methods), and methods which use the evanescent wave to excite other, spectroscopic phenomena, like fluorescence and Raman scattering or light scattering. As the methods of conventional fluorescence spectroscopy have been shown to be exceptionally successful in studies of proteins and other biopolymers, their evanescent surface-sensitive counterparts will be reviewed first. 

This article shows how the evanescent wave can be used with advantage for spectroscopic purposes in the field of biomedical engineering. Three types of spectroscopy can be done with the evanescent wave in the UV-VIS range of the spectrum (a) attenuated total reflection (ATR) spectroscopy, which is well known in the infrared (b) the excitation of Raman scattering with the evanescent wave and (c) the excitation of fluorescence with the evanescent wave. The first two types will be discussed in this article the third is discussed for example by Hirschfeld U) and more recently by Watkins and Robertson (2). But before going into details a historical review may be of some interest. 

Su L., Lee T. H., and Elliott S. R., Evanescent-wave excitation of surface-enhanced Raman scattering substrates by an optical-fiber taper. Opt Lett., 34, 2685-2687 (2009). 

---