Effective suppression of fluorescence light in Raman measurements using ultrafast time gated charge coupled device camera

A high level of fluorescence background signal rejection was achieved for solid and powder samples by using a combination of simple low-resolution spectrograph and ultrafast gated charge coupled device (CCD) camera. The unique timing characteristics of the CCD camera match exceptionally well to characteristics of a Ti:sapphire oscillator allowing fast gated light detection at a repetition rate of up to 110 MHz, making this approach superior in terms of the duty cycle in comparison with other time-resolved Raman techniques. The achieved temporal resolution was about 150 ps under 785 nm Ti: sapphire laser excitation. At an average excitation power up to 300 mW there was no noticeable sample damage observed. Hence, the demonstrated approach extends the capabilities of Raman spectroscopy regarding the investigation of samples with a short fluorescence lifetime. The combination of a spectrometer and a gated CCD camera allows simultaneous study of spectral and temporal characteristics of emitted light. This capability opens an exciting possibility to build a universal instrument for solving multitask problems in applied laser spectroscopy. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.