This Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project will build on the successful imaging Raman instrument demonstrated in Phase I, and produce second-generation instruments and software which fully exploit the potential of this new technique. In Phase I, chemical species were imaged using a narrowband liquid crystal tunable filter (LCTF) and CCD camera integrated into a Raman microscope. Diffraction-limited spatial images were obtained with complete (and spatially independent) Raman spectra at each pixel in the image, yielding an image cube with two spatial axes and one spectral axis. The novel LCTF approach renders high-definition Raman imaging feasible for the first time, and brings the power and specificity inherent in Raman spectral analysis to the imaging of chemical species. In Phase II, key improvements will be made: transmission will be doubled (or more) based on a high-efficiency design identified in Phase I, and the longwavelength limit will be extended from the present 700 nm to 1050 nm. Such an LCTF appears to offer near-revolutionary benefits in certain applications including semiconductor analysis, biomedical imaging, and pharmaceutical research. Performance in these areas will assessed experimentally in Phase II. Finally, data analysis methods will be developed to extract chemical species information from the large, spatially resolved datasets involved. Commercial sales of LCTF Raman imaging systems are estimated at $21M over the next 5 years, for research, semiconductor, diamond, pharmaceutical, and power generation industries.
