Computational field-resolved coherent chemical imaging

Area of Science:

• Spectroscopy
• Chemical Imaging
• Biomedical Diagnostics

Background:

• Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Scattering (CARS) is vital for chemical imaging but struggles with quantitative analysis due to lost spectral phase.
• Retrieving spectral phase information is key to enhancing CARS speed and accuracy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel CARS technique for retrieving vibrational spectral phase without external references.
• To enable artifact-less, high-speed quantitative chemical imaging.

Main Methods:

• Developed a reference-less interferometric broadband pump/probe CARS system.
• Adapted computational phase retrieval from spatial imaging to frequency-domain spectroscopy.
• Demonstrated supervised compressive CARS microspectroscopy.

Main Results:

• Successfully retrieved vibrational spectral phase information using the new CARS method.
• Achieved artifact-less, high-speed quantitative chemical imaging.
• Validated the transferability of computational phase retrieval to spectroscopy.

Conclusions:

• The developed CARS technique overcomes limitations in quantitative chemical imaging.
• This advancement paves the way for faster and more precise chemical analysis in various scientific fields.