Microanalytical nonlinear single-beam spectroscopy combining an unamplified femtosecond fibre laser, pulse shaping and interferometry

Nonlinear vibrational spectroscopy using a single beam of femtosecond pulses from an unamplified fibre laser oscillator is demonstrated. To achieve high spectral resolution and sensitive signal detection with the picojoule pulse energies available, pulse shaping and integrated interferometric detection is employed. The spectroscopic technique used is coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS), which yields well-resolved spectra of molecular vibrations in the 100–350 cm-1 domain of halomethane samples in the liquid phase. We explore the implications of phase control for the interferometric detection of weak signals. The presented combination of a fiber laser, pulse shaping and CARS microspectroscopy is a first example of simplified schemes for compact and robust nonlinear spectroscopic detection and sensing, which is demonstrated exemplarily by on-line monitoring of the chemical composition in a microfluidic flow cell.