Patent ID: 8111395

Claim:
A spectroscopic apparatus for investigating heterogeneity of a sample area that includes individual particles, comprising: an image acquisition system operative to acquire images of a plurality of individual particles in the sample area of individual particles, image analysis logic operative to analyze the images acquired by the image acquisition system, wherein the analysis logic includes sorting logic operative to sort the particles based on one or more of their morphological characteristics, a particle selection interface operatively connected to the image analysis logic and being responsive to a user selection of one or more morphological characteristics and being operative to at least semi-automatically select particles having the selected morphological characteristics, a spectrometer having a field of view and being operative to acquire a spectrum of at least part of one of the particles in its field of view, and a positioning mechanism responsive to the particle selection interface and operative to position the field of view of the spectrometer relative to the sample area based on a selection from the particle selection interface.