Chemical imaging

Chemical imaging (as quantitative – chemical mapping) is the analytical capability to create a visual image of components distribution from simultaneous measurement of spectra and spatial, time information.

The main idea - for chemical imaging, the analyst may choose to take as many data spectrum measured at a particular chemical component in spatial location at time; this is useful for chemical identification and quantification. Alternatively, selecting an image plane at a particular data spectrum (PCA - multivariable data of wavelength, spatial location at time) can map the spatial distribution of sample components, provided that their spectral signatures are different at the selected data spectrum.

Software for chemical imaging is most specific and distinguished from chemical methods such as chemometrics.

Hyperspectral imaging is most often applied to either solid or gel samples, and has applications in chemistry, biology, medicine, pharmacy (see also for example: food science, biotechnology, agriculture and industry. NIR, IR and Raman chemical imaging is also referred to as hyperspectral, spectroscopic, spectral or multispectral imaging (also see microspectroscopy). However, other ultra-sensitive and selective imaging techniques are also in use that involve either UV-visible or fluorescence microspectroscopy. Many imaging techniques can be used to analyze samples of all sizes, from the single molecule to the cellular level in biology and medicine, and to images of planetary systems in astronomy, but different instrumentation is employed for making observations on such widely different systems.

Imaging instrumentation has three components: a radiation source to illuminate the sample, a spectrally selective element, and usually a detector array (the camera) to collect the images. When many stacked spectral channels (wavelengths) are collected for different locations of the microspectrometer focus on a line or planar array in the focal plane, the data is called hyperspectral; fewer wavelength data sets are called multispectral. The data format is called a hypercube. The data set may be visualized as a data cube, a three-dimensional block of data spanning two spatial dimensions (x and y), with a series of wavelengths (lambda) making up the third (spectral) axis. The hypercube can be visually and mathematically treated as a series of spectrally resolved images (each image plane corresponding to the image at one wavelength) or a series of spatially resolved spectra.

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Wikipedia