Light sheet integral field raman microspectroscopy

State of the art biological Raman microscopy currently faces significant drawbacks of low imaging acquisition rate and low signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR). This thesis aims to overcome those issues, introducing an alternative Raman imaging technique. This method is based on light sheet microscopy combined with integral field spectroscopy and optimized for single cell imaging. The optical design, experimental implementation and characterization are presented. The system has a field of view of \SI{8.2}{\micro\metre} $\times$ \SI{8.2}{\micro\metre} and detects the spectral range from 650 to \SI{1800}{\centi\metre^{-1}}. The lateral spatial resolution, axial spatial resolution, and spectral resolution are \SI{0.72}{\micro\metre}, \SI{3.2}{\micro\metre}, and \SI{12}{\centi\metre^{-1}} at a wavelength of \SI{620}{\nano\metre}, respectively. The analysis of the system performance shows an increment of the imaging acquisition rate of 300$\times$ and a SNR improvement of 3.7$\times$, in comparison to a commercial Raman confocal microscope. Furthermore, to probe the capabilities of the system for characterizing biological samples, microplastic-fed THP-1 cells images are presented.