Instantaneous shifted-excitation Raman difference spectroscopy (iSERDS)

Shifted-excitation Raman difference spectroscopy (SERDS) is an experimental method to recover spontaneous Raman spectra despite the presence of strong fluorescence interference. The common scheme requires a tunable laser source and recording two spectra after each other. In this paper, an approach for instantaneous SERDS (iSERDS) is presented utilizing a broadband light source. The broadband radiation is spatially dispersed in the focal plane inside the object of investigation. The generated scattering signal is imaged onto the slit of an imaging spectrograph. The individual pixel lines on the detector represent Raman spectra with slightly shifted excitation wavelength and hence allow SERDS spectra to be derived. The proposed iSERDS technique is a suitable approach for obtaining Raman spectra from fluorescing samples provided they are homogenous on the length scale of the measurement volume. Copyright (c) 2014 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.