Synchrotron Radiation Beamlines High Brilliance Tools for IR Spectromicroscopy

Infrared Synchrotron Radiation Beamlines High Brilliance Tools for IR Spectromicroscopy 

In the last decade we have witnessed impressive progress in the applications of infrared (IR) microspectroscopy, especially in the field of life sciences and more specifically for medical diagnosis. Different initiatives, meetings and conferences have been dedicated to the study of IR spectroscopy applied to investigate or to classify single cells or tissue sections. The key tools for such research are the IR microscope used for imaging and Fourier transform IR interferometer (FTIR) for spectral analysis. 

In this context, the use of synchrotron radiation (SR) as a photon source has been suggested because of its brilliance advantage, namely in the range of two to three orders of magnitude through small apertures at the sample position, over conventional blackbody (Globar) sources that equip most commercial FTIR microscopes. 

Several recent experiments have demonstrated that, with a dedicated IR setup, there is a great advantage of using synchrotron radiation IR sources for 

Tn this chapter brilliance is used to mean the flux density per unit area and solid angle. 

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