Area-detection fibre-optic system for spatially offset Raman spectroscopy and Raman tomography in reflection mode.

A new design of a fibre-optic probe system is presented which can be used to simultaneously detect scattering signals from multiple channels for spatially offset Raman spectroscopy and Raman tomography in reflection mode. The fibre setup contained 32 source fibres with an auto-controlled optical switch and 40 detector fibres, which were deployed in a large-area planar interface. Phantom experiments were conducted using a prototype of the Raman instrument, and have demonstrated the practical applicability of the system design. The presented area-detection instrument provides an efficient platform for various reflectance applications of Raman modalities over a large area. It could also be potentially adopted for other diffuse optical-based spectroscopic and tomographic applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]