Patent ID: 7697137

Claim:
A hyper-spectral imaging system, comprising: a housing; a slit attached to said housing; a detector attached to said housing; and a monolithic Offner spectrometer positioned inside said housing, wherein said monolithic Offner spectrometer includes: a transmissive material which has: an entrance surface; a first surface which has a first reflective coating applied thereto to form a first mirror for receiving and reflecting a beam that passed through said entrance surface; a second surface which has a second reflective coating applied thereto to form a diffraction grating for receiving, diffracting and reflecting the beam, wherein said diffraction grating has a powered surface with a plurality of linear gratings and each linear grating has a blazed surface which is tilted according to a blaze angle that varies across the powered surface, wherein each linear grating has a period defined by a distance between two ruled lines and each ruled line has a blaze reset, and wherein each blaze reset has an angle that varies at a different angle than the varying blaze angle; a third surface which has a third reflective coating applied thereto to form a second mirror for receiving and reflecting the diffracted beam; and an exit surface for passing there through the diffracted beam reflected from said second mirror.