The development of fiber-optic based ultraviolet resonance Raman spectroscopy (UVRRS) and biological applications

Ultraviolet resonance Raman spectroscopy has gained in popularity in recent years as a technique for biophysical investigations due to its information rich spectra, lack of fluorescence interference and potential sensitivity. It also has a selectivity advantage over non-resonance Raman spectroscopy in that the vibrations of a given chromophore can be enhanced over other components in a mixture by judicious choice of the incident frequency of radiation. However, broad usage of this technique has been hampered by several practical factors which have included the lack of convenient ultraviolet light sources necessary for the Raman experiment, unwieldy sample preparation requirements and relatively inefficient spectrographs and detectors for this region of the spectrum