Fast Compressive Raman Imaging of Polymorph Molecules and Excipients in Pharmaceutical Tablets.

We implement a near-infrared (NIR) version of compressive Raman imaging that incorporates a digital micromirror device (DMD) and a single-pixel detector for fast chemometric analysis and microscopic imaging. The NIR compressive Raman system is successfully used to detect and image active pharmaceutical ingredients exhibiting polymorphism within compact pharmaceutical tablets. We report the chemical imaging of a mixture of two clopidogrel polymorphs and three excipients in solid tablets with a pixel dwell time of 2.5 ms (0.5 ms per species). These results open the road to fast pharmaceutical tablet quality control imaging using compressive Raman technology.