Vibrational microspectrometry

Vibrational microspectrometry will undoubtedly be applied to medical diagnosis in the near future. One particularly important application of microspectrometry is for the characterization of tissue samples. Tissue samples can be mounted on a water-insoluble infrared-transparent window such as ZnSe, but these windows are expensive and not conducive to visual examination (e.g., after staining of the tissue). A convenient alternative to transmission spectrometry is the measurement of the transflectance spectrum (see Section 13.5) of tissue samples mounted on low-emissivity glass slides [4]. These slides are transparent to visible light but highly reflective to mid-infrared radiation. 

The frequencies of absorption bands present gives diagnostic information on the nature of functional groups in materials as well as information from any observed frequency shifts on aspects such as hydrogen bonding and crystallinity. In many cases, spectra can be recorded non-destructively using either reflection or transmission procedures. IR spectra of small samples can also be obtained through microscopes (IR microspectrometry). Chalmers and Dent [8] discuss the theory and practice of IR spectroscopy in their book on industrial analysis with vibrational spectroscopy. Standard spectra of additives for polymeric materials include the major collection by Hummel and Scholl [9]. 

Raman microspectroscopy results from coupling of an optical microscope to a Raman spectrometer. The high spatial resolution of the confocal Raman microspectrometry allows the characterization of the structure of food sample at a micrometer scale. The principle of this imaging technique is based on specific vibration bands as markers of Raman technique, which permit the reconstruction of spectral images by surface scanning on an area. 

---