Stepwise method based on Wiener estimation for spectral reconstruction in spectroscopic Raman imaging

Raman spectroscopy has demonstrated great potential in biomedical applications. However, spectroscopic Raman imaging is limited in the investigation of fast changing phenomena because of slow data acquisition. Our previous studies have indicated that spectroscopic Raman imaging can be significantly sped up using the approach of narrow-band imaging followed by spectral reconstruction. A multi-channel system was built to demonstrate the feasibility of fast wide-field spectroscopic Raman imaging using the approach of simultaneous narrow-band image acquisition followed by spectral reconstruction based on Wiener estimation in phantoms. To further improve the accuracy of reconstructed Raman spectra, we propose a stepwise spectral reconstruction method in this study, which can be combined with the earlier developed sequential weighted Wiener estimation to improve spectral reconstruction accuracy. The stepwise spectral reconstruction method first reconstructs the fluorescence background spectrum from narrow-band measurements and then the pure Raman narrow-band measurements can be estimated by subtracting the estimated fluorescence background from the overall narrow-band measurements. Thereafter, the pure Raman spectrum can be reconstructed from the estimated pure Raman narrow-band measurements. The result indicates that the stepwise spectral reconstruction method can improve spectral reconstruction accuracy significantly when combined with sequential weighted Wiener estimation, compared with the traditional Wiener estimation. In addition, qualitatively accurate cell Raman spectra were successfully reconstructed using the stepwise spectral reconstruction method from the narrow-band measurements acquired by a four-channel wide-field Raman spectroscopic imaging system. This method can potentially facilitate the adoption of spectroscopic Raman imaging to the investigation of fast changing phenomena.