RATIONAL DESIGN OF FIBEROPTIC PROBES FOR VISIBLE AND PULSED-ULTRAVIOLET RESONANCE RAMAN-SPECTROSCOPY

The investigated the performance of fiber-optic resonance Raman probes with a series of experiments to determine the working curves of such probes using model analytes and to investigate the effects of absorbin g media. A computer model designed to simulate these experiments is pr esented, and numerical results are found to be in agreement with the e xperimental data. Design considerations resulting from these studies a re discussed, and novel designs for overcoming problems of coupling ef ficiency, damage threshold, and sensitivity in absorbing samples are p resented. These findings are applied to the design of fiber-optic prob es for ultraviolet resonance Raman spectroscopy involving nanosecond p ulsed-ultraviolet excitation (225 and 266 nm). These probes have been used to collect what is, to our knowledge, the first reported fiber-op tic-linked ultraviolet resonance Raman spectra of tryptophan and DNA. (C) 1996 Optical Society of America