System, method and apparatus for improving the spectral resolution and signal-to-noise ratio of optical spectrometer using digital beam refocusing, reforming, slicing, and multiplexing

Abstract

There is disclosed a novel system and method for improving spectral resolution and signal-to-noise ratio of a captured spectrum by employing digital beam reforming, digital slicing, and digital multiplexing. In an embodiment, the method comprises: and entrance aperture for the light to enter the apparatus, a collimating element (refractive or reflective), a dispersive element (single- or multi-axis), a focusing element (refractive or reflective), and a linear or array detector for acquisition of the spectrum. The spectrum is then digitally beam reformed, digitally beam sliced to increase spectral resolution, and digitally beam multiplexed to increase the signal-to-noise ratio. In addition the disclosed invention is also capable of performing digital beam refocusing which means the optical focusing power can be chosen such that its performance surpasses the performance of any analog optical focusing element thereby further increasing the spectral resolution and the signal-to-noise ratio of the spectrum. The invention can be used as a stand-alone system or can be used in conjunction of any spectrometer even those augmented with optical slicer technologies. The degree of improvement to the spectral resolution is completely tunable and has no bearing of the efficiency of the instrument.