Chemical imaging shares the fundamentals of vibrational spectroscopic techniques, but provides additional information by way of the simultaneous acquisition of spatially resolved spectra. It combines the advantages of digital imaging with the attributes of spectroscopic measurements. Briefly, vibrational spectroscopy measures the interaction of light with matter. Photons that interact with a sample are either absorbed or scattered; photons of specific energy are absorbed, and the pattern of absorption provides information, or a fingerprint, on the molecules that are present in the sample.
On the other hand, in terms of the observation setup, chemical imaging can be carried out in one of the following modes: (optical) absorption, emission (fluorescence), (optical) transmission or scattering (Raman). A consensus currently exists that the fluorescence (emission) and Raman scattering modes are the most sensitive and powerful, but also the most expensive.
In a transmission measurement, the radiation goes through a sample and is measured by a detector placed on the far side of the sample. The energy transferred from the incoming radiation to the molecule(s) can be calculated as the difference between the quantity of photons that were emitted by the source and the quantity that is measured by the detector. In a diffuse reflectance measurement, the same energy difference measurement is made, but the source and detector are located on the same side of the sample, and the photons that are measured have re-emerged from the illuminated side of the sample rather than passed through it. The energy may be measured at one or multiple wavelengths; when a series of measurements are made, the response curve is called a spectrum.
A key element in acquiring spectra is that the radiation must somehow be energy selected – either before or after interacting with the sample. Wavelength selection can be accomplished with a fixed filter, tunable filter, spectrograph, an interferometer, or other devices. For a fixed filter approach, it is not efficient to collect a significant number of wavelengths, and multispectral data are usually collected. Interferometer-based chemical imaging requires that entire spectral ranges be collected, and therefore results in hyperspectral data. Tunable filters have the flexibility to provide either multi- or hyperspectral data, depending on analytical requirements.
Spectra are typically measured with an imaging spectrometer, based on a Focal Plane Array.