Multicomponent analysis using a confocal Raman microscope.

Measuring the concentration of multiple chemical components in a low-volume aqueous mixture by Raman spectroscopy has received significant interest in the literature. All of the contributions to date focus on the design of optical systems that facilitate the recording of spectra with high signal-to-noise ratio by collecting as many Raman scattered photons as possible. In this study, the confocal Raman microscope setup is investigated for multicomponent analysis. Partial least-squares regression is used to quantify physiologically relevant aqueous mixtures of glucose, lactic acid, and urea. The predicted error is 17.81 mg/dL for glucose, 10.6 mg/dL for lactic acid, and 7.6 mg/dL for urea, although this can be improved with increased acquisition times. A theoretical analysis of the method is proposed, which relates the numerical aperture and the magnification of the microscope objective, as well as the confocal pinhole size, to the performance of the technique.