Raman optical activity by coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering spectral interferometry

We demonstrate a method to measure Raman optical activity (ROA) by using coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) spectral interferometry. An extremely weak chirality-induced CARS field is amplified through the interference with a strong CARS field generated from an external reference and is extracted by the Fourier transformation. In this interferometric coherent Raman optical activity (iCROA), both the sign and the magnitude of optical active non-resonant background susceptibility can be directly determined. Measurement of a CARS-ROA spectrum with less artifact is obtained because a broad offset artifact due to optical rotatory dispersion is clearly distinguished in iCROA. (C) 2013 Optical Society of America