Spectral volume microprobe analysis of materials

Abstract

An optical probe collects light responses from a specimen that selectively and preferentially emanates from a localized volume element within the sample, with illumination irradiance and collection efficiency both dropping off away from the localized volume element, and a processor applies a vector or matrix transform to collected responses to produce an output. The optics provide high peak illumination and high collection efficiency which both overlap in small volume elements that are limited in length, width or depth to correspond to a structure or process of the specimen so that the collected spectra or other responses have high signal strength and enhanced correlation values to small or otherwise inaccessible or masked effects present in macroscopic or submacroscopic regions. Responses from volumes outside the localized element are substantially rejected and correlation transforms are readily derived from the strong spectral responses of tissue samples having an independently identified pathology or condition and these transforms are stored. A processor then applies the stored transforms so obtained to a newly collected response to determine the presence or extent of a particular pathology in the observed tissue.