lmaging properties of a Raman confocal-theta microscope

Abstract

We compute the three-dimensional point spread function (PSF) of the Raman confocal-theta microscope that uses a grating spectrometer to determine the Raman spectra of a microscopic sample volume. In assessing the performance of the Raman confocal-theta microscope as a technique for materials analysis, it is necessary to investigate the PSF behavior as a function of the angle between the illumination and detection axes. The confocal-theta imaging configuration is important in cytometry, fluorescence microscopy, Raman spectroscopy and luminescence microscopy where the removal of the incident beam from the line of detection is imperative.