Rapid confocal Raman imaging using a synchro multifoci-scan scheme for dynamic monitoring of single living cells

We developed a rapid multifoci-scan confocal Raman microscopy system for label-free molecular imaging of single living cells. A pair of galvo-mirrors were used to raster scan a single laser to generate multifoci excitations and another galvo-mirror synchronously projected Raman scattering from each foci onto a multichannel spectrograph such that multiple spectra were collected simultaneously. The image acquisition time is ∼40 times faster than in conventional point-scan Raman microscopy with diffraction-limited resolution retained. We demonstrated that this system can be used to monitor the germination dynamics of single bacterial spores with about 1.0 min resolution and 2.5 mW power at each focal point.