Saturation of vibrational coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering mediated by saturation of the rotational Raman transition

Saturation of vibrational Raman coherence and coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) using femtosecond (fs) excitation pulses is investigated theoretically. The pump in a typical fs-CARS configuration has a bandwidth of a few hundred cm(-1) that can couple tens of rotational states of room-air nitrogen molecules simultaneously, unlike in CARS with longer pulse durations. It is demonstrated that the vibrational coherence and also the vibrational CARS with fs excitation display saturationlike behavior once the rotational coherence is saturated. The Raman saturation threshold for the fs pump is numerically estimated to be at a peak intensity of similar to 10(22) W/m(2), which is six to seven orders of magnitude higher than that in the nanosecond regime. The results are compared with the known saturation thresholds in different pulse-duration regimes and placed in perspective with other nonlinear thresholds reported in fs excitation regimes. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.87.043801