METHOD AND APPLICATIONS TO ENHANCE AND IMAGE OPTICAL SIGNALS FROM BIOLOGICAL OBJECTS

摘要

A method and apparatus for imaging biological objects (100). A SERS surface (102) is provided having enhancing structures uniformly distributed on the surface. The surface includes a two dimensional area of at least 5 x 105 nm. The enhancing structures may have a size, in at least one dimension of height, width and length, ranging from 100 nm to 1000 nm. A biological material (100) is deposited on the SERS surface (102). The biological material on the SERS surface is illuminated using a monochromatic light source (110) producing Raman scattered photons. The Raman scattered photons are filtered using a tunable filter (135) into a plurality of predetermined wavelength bands. A two-dimensional array detector (145) detects the filtered Raman scattered photons, in a spatially accurate manner. The results of filtering and detecting steps are combined to produce a plurality of spectrally resolved Raman images of the biological material.