SNR Enhancement and Deconvolution of Raman Spectra Using a Two-Point Entropy Regularization Method

A new method for Raman signal recovery, the two-point maximum entropy method (TPMEM), based on a regularization method using two-point entropy is presented. The method can be used for signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) enhancement in very low SNR measurements or for deconvolution, in order to remove the effects of the instrumental line shape on the measured spectrum. Unlike most SNR enhancement schemes, TPMEM requires no filter parameters and no a priori knowledge of the expected signal. A rigorous test on a randomly produced set of convolved and/or noise-corrupted simulated Raman spectra is presented in order to validate the method and compare it to Savitzky-Golay filtering and the maximum entropy method. The method is evaluated on the basis of the root mean square (rms) error and correlation coefficients of the recovered data with the original data, as well as on the basis of SNR improvement, and showed significant improvements in both performance and speed over conventional methods. The method is demonstrated in an application involving fiber-optic-linked Raman and resonance Raman spectroscopy.