Patent ID: 8441632

Claim:
A biological and chemical microscopic targeting system, comprising: a light source configured to emit a laser beam; an imaging system configured to direct the beam towards a sample substrate along at least one optical path such that beam divergence causes the laser spot to be defocused with respect to an optical focal plane of the imaging system, the imaging system comprising an objective lens wherein: the beam passes through the objective lens to illuminate the sample substrate; and light collected from the sample substrate is directed back through the objective lens; optics that separate inelastically scattered photons from elastic incident photons comprising at least one filter defining a bandpass having a narrow bandwidth that filters the scattered photons to pass spectrally shifted wavelengths due to material on the sample substrate whose C—H x molecular bonds inelastically shift the wavelength of the incident photons and to attenuate inelastically scattered photons outside the narrow bandwidth; and an output device that discriminates between biological and chemical particles of interest from other particles contained on the sample substrate based upon detection solely within the narrow bandwidth, to a user.