Raman microscope with ultra-high speed imaging capability
The most advanced feature of RAMAN-11 is the ultra-high speed imaging capability comparing with conventional micro Raman systems. High speed imaging capability drastically improves the measuring throughput in laboratories and factories, Also it enables us to observe the samples changing by time such as living cells.
Ultra-high speed imaging has been realized by Nanophoton's original technologies of line illumination and parallel detection
RAMAN-11 illuminates a line shaped area on the sample with a line shaped laser beam and excites Raman scattering from it. Whole image area specified on the sample is illuminated by scanning in the horizontal direction against the line shaped laser beams direction (fig.2(a)). Conventional micro Raman systems illuminate the sample just at one point. It takes enormous time to obtain whole image because of one point by one point acquisition and stage scanning (fig.2(b)). For example, in the case of the microscopic image acquisition of 400 x 400 pixels as illustrated above, RAMAN-11 requires only 400 points of one horizontal scan, but the conventional micro Raman systems using point illumination with stage scan needs total 160,000 points of XY scans (vertical 400 x horizontal 400 pixels) . This means that RAMAN-11 can acquire the Raman image only in 5 minutes. On the other hand, the conventional Raman systems need more than 30 hours to obtain the same image.
Images in Fig.1 are spectral images which contain Raman spectrum in each pixel. As illustrated in Fig.2 (a), Raman scattering light from the line shaped area on the sample is simultaneously detected by parallel detection system as 400 individual Raman spectrum together with line shaped spatial information. This combination of the line illumination and the parallel detection realizes such an ultra-high speed Raman imaging. (A point illumination mode is also available on RAMAN-11. Type of illumination mode should be selected depending on the measuring condition. )
Fig.1 (a)
Raman imaging obtained by RAMAN-11
Fig.1(b)
Raman imaging obtained by conventional Raman systems
Fig.2 (a)Line illumination scan with RAMAN-11
Fig.2 (b)Point illumination and stage scan with conventional micro Raman systems
Features
Only a few minutes of acquisition time is required for Raman imaging.
Clear observation of fine structure by high spatial resolution of 0.3micro at x, y direction and 0.7micro at z direction.
Easy to learn and use software for all users.
High peak position accuracy (0.1 cm-1) enabling to measure the strain of the crystals.
One simple mouse click enabling to measure any location on the sample observed with CCD camera.
Small footprint by compact design.
Outline of RAMAN-11
RAMAN-11 is a next generation laser microscope observing an image of a sample with Raman scattering lights emitted from the molecules. Raman spectroscopy technique used for RAMAN-11 gives researchers the knowledge for the details of constituent elements of organelles or protein. By observing the Raman scattering lights emitted from the molecules of the living cells, distribution of the molecules can be imaged with the colors (wavelength) unique to those molecules without using the staining method.
When a molecule is illuminated with a monochromatic laser beam, a portion of the incident light is scattered with different color. This scattered light is called "Raman scattering" for the name of the discoverer. The Raman scattered light tells us about the molecular is specific to
the molecule, like a fingerprint. In addition, the Raman scattered light from a crystal gives the lattice condition of the crystal such as distortion, defects and impurity, and therefore can be utilized for crystal analysis.
Due to the weakness of Raman scattered light, conventional micro Raman system took a long time for one point measurement and scanned the sample point by point to take images. The scanning speed of this method is very slow. RAMAN-11 has noteworthy capable to accelerate the imaging speed. Nanophoton's original technology of a flying spot scanning technique contributes 100 times faster image acquisition than conventional systems.
Examples of observation
A Raman image of fullerene(C60) schowing the intensity peak at 1470cm-1. The fullerene distribution generated on the substrate is observed
Raman observation image of a paint surface. With an unknown mixture of substances, the surface state and the anamorphism can be observed and analyzed at the microscopic scale.
Raman image of non-stained living cardiomyocytes. Raman peaks of lipid, protein, and nucleic acid are assigned to red, green and blue. Subcellular organelles and bio-molecules are observed.
Phase contrast image(left) and Raman Image(center) of a white blood cell capturing foreign body.
