Abstract
For the acquisition of high-quality ultraviolet resonance Raman spectra of strongly scattering samples such as membrane protein suspensions, an f /3.5 Littrow prism prefilter has been designed, built, and characterized. This prefilter has a Czerny-Turner configuration, and its focal length is 25 cm. The apex angle of the dispersive prism (20 ) was chosen to provide maximum performance in the 220 to 240 nm range. The prism prefilter significantly reduced stray background due to Rayleigh scattering and visible fluorescence, while maintaining a low dispersion of 1300 cm-1/mm at 253 nm as well as a large fl /3.5 aperture. The sharpness of the transmission edge (at 242 nm, the T = 0% to 95% transition occurs in 1.3 nm) quantitates its effectiveness as a sharp-cut Rayleigh scattering filter. The total throughput of the prefilter is ~60% at 235 nm and 50% at 632.8 nm. The utility of this prefilter is demonstrated by obtaining high signal-to-noise resonance Raman spectra of bacteriorhodopsin in a purple membrane suspension with 239.5 nm excitation.
PDF Article
More Like This
Cited By
You do not have subscription access to this journal. Cited by links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an Optica member, or as an authorized user of your institution.
Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access Optica Member Subscription