High-speed and wide-field 3D Raman imaging using flower-like gap-enhanced Raman tags

Abstract

Raman imaging technology plays a pivotal role in biomedical research, with the pursuit of higher resolution, faster imaging speed, and a larger field of view consistently driving the development of Raman imaging systems. In this work, we propose a high-speed and wide-field three-dimensional (3D) Raman imaging method based on light field microscopy and flower-like gap-enhanced Raman tags (F-GERTs). F-GERTs with enhanced Raman signals and high stability are used to label microbial and cell samples, avoiding the problem of photobleaching. The micro-lens array and scientific camera are incorporated to capture light field Raman images containing spatial information of the sample in a single snapshot acquisition process. The 3D reconstruction algorithm can complete the processing of the light field image within 1 min, reconstructing the 3D Raman image of the sample and the precisely slice structure at different depths. This high-speed and wide-field Raman imaging technology has great potential in the field of real-time 3D Raman imaging of microorganisms and cells.