Focal plane array IR imaging at the Australian Synchrotron

A Focal Plane Array FTIR microscope has successfully been coupled to the IRM beamline at the Australian Synchrotron, following the method pioneered at previous beamlines at the SRC and NSLS I synchrotrons, whereby a wide aperture of synchrotron light is split into multiple beams and spatially reconfigured to match the entrance aperture of the FTIR instrumentation. Imaging performance has been assessed using a selection of polymer and biological samples, providing diffraction-limited sub-cellular lateral resolution in the biological materials. We have demonstrated that improved collection times at high lateral resolution are possible, when compared with single element point-mapping microspectroscopy, though this is achieved with a trade off in spectral noise. Future improvements in the use of an FPA detector at the Australian Synchrotron are proposed, including removal of coherent interference and installation of a dedicated beam extraction port for FPA microspectroscopy.