Diffraction barrier breakthrough in coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering microscopy by additional probe-beam-induced phonon depletion

Abstract

We provide an approach to significantly break the diffraction limit in coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) microscopy via an additional probe-beam-induced photon depletion (APIPD). The additional probe beam, whose profile is doughnut shaped and whose wavelength is different from the Gaussian probe beam, depletes the phonons to yield an unwanted anti-Stokes signal within a certain bandwidth at the rim of the diffraction-limited spot. When the Gaussian probe beam that follows immediately arrives, no anti-Stokes signal is generated in this region, resembling stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy, and the spot-generating useful anti-Stokes signals by this beam are substantially suppressed to a much smaller dimension. Scanning the spot renders three-dimensional, label-free, and chemically selective CARS images with subdiffraction resolution. Also, resolution-enhanced images of the molecule, specified by its broadband even-total CARS spectral signals not only by one anti-Stokes signal for its special chemical bond, can be obtained by employing a supercontinuum source.