Supercontinuum ultra wide range confocal microscope for reflectance spectroscopy of living matter and material science surfaces

We report the design and implementation of a new reflectance laser scanning confocal system with spectroscopy imaging capabilities. Confocal spectroscopy is achieved by using a very broad spectral range supercontinuum source capable of high precision reflectance data in the VIS-IR spectral range thanks to an almost achromatic optical layout. With this apparatus we collect each single scanning point as a whole spectrum in a continuous range, associated with the optical section imaging possibilities typical of a confocal set up. While such a microscope has been developed for bio medical analysis of human skin and other similar applications, first test results on solid samples produce spectroscopic results that, compared to analytical models based on the Abeles matrix transfer methods, show a very good agreement, opening new possibilities of a complete spectroscopic fingerprinting of samples with microscopic details. Copyright 2011 Author(s). This article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. [doi:10.1063/1.3631661]