Time-resolved assessment of drying plants by Brillouin and Raman spectroscopies

Raman and Brillouin spectroscopies enable noninvasive assessment of chemical and elastic properties of biomaterials, respectively. In this report, Brillouin microspectroscopy was used for the time-resolved analysis of elastic properties of Populus and Geranium leaves, whereas Raman microspectroscopy was employed for the assessment of their chemical variation during drying. Spectroscopic assessment of elastic and chemical properties can improve our understanding of mechanochemical changes of plants in response to environmental stress and pathogens at the microscopic cellular level. This report demonstrates the potential of multimodal optical sensing and imaging of plants as an emerging technique for the quantitative assessment of agricultural crops.