Blue-shifted dispersive wave generation by the diffraction-arrested solitons for coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering microscopy in a photonic crystal fiber

The broadband blue-shifted dispersive waves (DWs) are efficiently generated by the diffraction-arrested solitons in a photonic crystal fiber (PCF) designed and fabricated in our laboratory. By optimizing the pump parameters and the fiber length, the DWs can be used as the pump pulses for the high resolution coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) microscopy. The CARS microscopy based on the broadband DWs can be an attractive tool for simultaneously measuring the vibrational dephasing times of multiple Raman modes of the biological and chemical samples with the C–H and O–H stretch vibration resonances of 2700–3000 cm−1 and 3000–3750 cm−1.