Patent ID: 8873057

Claim:
A probe, comprising: a probe head including, an opening for receiving a sample to be analysed, a pair of optical interfaces each disposed at an opposing inner surface of the opening to delimit a path for optical radiation through the opening, wherein at least one of the pair of optical interfaces comprises an optically transparent element adapted to permit optical radiation in one or more wavelength regions of interest to travel between an internal section of the probe head and the opening, a movable diaphragm in which one of the pair of optical interfaces is located for movement therewith, an actuator operably connected to the diaphragm and configured to control a movement of the diaphragm so as to vary a length of the path, and a hinge system configured to, in cooperation with the actuator, move the optical interface located in the movable diaphragm in an arc to vary the path length and to create a non-parallelism between the optical interfaces.