Applications
CARS is used for species selective microscopy and combustion diagnostics. The first exploits the selectivity of vibrational spectroscopy whereas the latter is aimed at temperature measurements; the CARS signal is temperature dependent. The strength of the signal scales (non-linearly) with the difference in the ground state population and the vibrationally excited state population. Since the population of states follows the temperature dependent Boltzmann Distribution, the CARS signal carries an intrinsic temperature dependence as well. This temperature dependence makes CARS a popular technique for monitoring the temperature of hot gases and flames. More recently, CARS has been utilized as a method for non-invasive imaging of lipids in biological samples, both in vivo and in vitro. CARS-based detectors for roadside bombs are under development.
Read more about this topic: Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Spectroscopy