Femtosecond Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Spectroscopy (CARS) As Next Generation Nonlinear LIDAR Spectroscopy and Microscopy

Abstract

Nonlinear spectroscopy using coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering and femtosecond laser pulses has been successfully developed as powerful tools for chemical analysis and biological imaging. Recent developments show promising possibilities of incorporating CARS into LIDAR system for remote detection of molecular species in airborne particles. The corresponding theory is being developed to describe nonlinear scattering of a mesoscopic particle composed of complex molecules by laser pulses with arbitrary shape and spectral content. Microscopic many-body transform theory is used to compute the third order susceptibility for CARS in molecules with known absorption spectrum and vibrational modes. The theory is combined with an integral scattering formula and Mie-Lorentz formulae, giving a rigorous formalism which provides powerful numerical experimentation of CARS spectra, particularly on the variations with the laser parameters and the direction of detection.