Brighter CARS hypermicroscopy via "spectral surfing" of a Stokes supercontinuum

We present a simple technique that significantly enhances the interaction of pump pulses with a supercontinuum Stokes generated by a particular nonlinear fiber for time-gated experiments such as coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS). The enhancement is achieved through a synchronized power-tuning/time delay scheme that we call spectral surfing. In this Letter, we introduce spectral surfing and demonstrate how its application to an economical CARS hypermicroscopy scheme increases the brightness, contrast, and spectral scanning range, while potentially reducing sample light exposure.