Background clean-up in Brillouin microspectroscopy of scattering medium

Brillouin spectroscopy is an emerging tool for microscopic optical imaging as it allows for non-contact, non-invasive, direct assessment of the elastic properties of materials. However, strong elastic scattering and stray light from various sources often contaminate the Brillouin spectrum. A molecular absorption cell was introduced into the virtually imaged phased array (VIPA) based Brillouin spectroscopy setup to absorb the Rayleigh component, which resulted in a substantial improvement of the Brillouin spectrum quality.