Processing FT-IR Imaging Data for Morphology Visualization

Abstract

Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) imaging yields large volumes of spatially specific spectral data in a short time. While chemical information about a specific sample area is a goal, complete morphological visualization similar to that obtained by optical microscopy is desirable. To obtain morphological images from this large data volume with the highest possible fidelity, specific techniques are required. However, in general, fast FT-IR imaging (3–5 min of collection time) leads to noisy morphological images due to hardware limitations. The data can be transformed by using transformations to eliminate noise. Image display techniques and filters can then be used to further refine, display, and carry out quantitative morphological analysis. This paper classifies various techniques and demonstrates their applicability to FT-IR absorbance image analysis.