Prism-based spectrometers tackle today’s miniaturization requirements.pdfVIP

Linear array detector α Matrix array (CCD) α 57Laser Focus World July 2010 Prism-based spectrometers tackle today’s miniaturization requirements JEREMY LERNER It is truly said that form follows func- tion; however, increased miniaturiza- tion inevitably collides with practical realities. Surprisingly, however, tech- nologies over 300 years old are fi nally experiencing a rebirth in cutting-edge applications. Sir Isaac Newton fi rst de- scribed the use of a prism to display the colors present in the sun’s light in 1666. This promising beginning was soon usurped by the diffraction grating and by the late 1800s grating-based spectrometers became the de facto stan- dard. But by the year 2000, grating-spectrometer de- velopment had more or less hit a plateau, failing to satisfy some of the more demanding and emerging applications that often require min- iature spectrometers or microspectrometers in a handheld or portable format. The remote-sensing community, for example, pioneered the use of hyperspectral imaging to correlate objects in a heterogeneous field of view (FOV) with their spectral characteristics. To satisfy the needs of this community, imaging spectrometers were developed that used prisms and prism-grating combinations (grisms). This new generation of imaging spectrometers has since been adapted to address complex applications including automated pathology, biomedical imaging, and nanoparticle imaging and characterization.1, 2 Imaging versus non-imaging spectrometers In the early 1900s it was observed that all spectrometers took a point and im- aged it as a line, at each wavelength, on the detector. The image of a point on the entrance slit was not only elongat- ed due to astigmatism but also suffered from curvature and other aberrations (see Fig. 1). This not only made it impos- sible to differentiate between the spectra presented by two adjacent objects, but also spread the light over a large area, Because