Fast compressive Raman micro-spectroscopy to image and classify microplastics from natural marine environment

The fast and reliable detection of micron-sized plastic particles from the natural marine environment is an important topic that is mostly addressed using spontaneous Raman spectroscopy. Due to the long (>tens of ms) integration time required to record a viable Raman signal, measurements are limited to a single point per microplastic particle or require very long acquisition times (up to tens of hours). In this work, we develop, validate, and demonstrate a compressive Raman technology using binary spectral filters and single-pixel detection that can image and classify six types of marine microplastic particles over an area of 1 mm² with a pixel dwell time down to 1.75 ms/pixel and a spatial resolution of 1 µm. This is x10-100 faster than reported in previous studies.