Line-scanning Brillouin microscopy for rapid non-invasive mechanical imaging

Brillouin spectroscopy probes the mechanical properties of material by measuring the optical frequency shift induced by photon-phonon scattering interactions. In traditional configurations, Brillouin spectrometers measure only one point of the sample at a time. This results in long acquisition times for mechanical imaging of large areas. In this work, we demonstrate a parallel detection configuration where the Brillouin shift of hundreds of points in a line can be measured simultaneously. In mm-sized samples, this novel configuration effectively shortens the acquisition time of two-dimensional Brillouin imaging from hours to tens of seconds, thus making it a powerful technology for label-free mechanical characterization of tissue and biomaterials.