Wide-Field Surface-Enhanced Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Scattering Microscopy

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectroscopy has been used extensively to study biology, chemistry, and materials. However, point-by-point SERS mapping is time-consuming, taking minutes to hours for large-scale imaging. Here, we report a wide-field surface-enhanced coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (WISE-CARS) microscope for monitoring nanotags in live cells and label-free detection of metabolic molecules. The WISE-CARS microscope achieves an imaging speed of 120 fps for a field of view of 130 mu m x 130 mu m. By spectral focusing of femtosecond lasers, a hyperspectral WISE-CARS stack of 60 frames can be acquired within 0.5 s, where over 1 million Raman spectra are parallelly recorded with a spectral resolution of 10 cm(-1). As applications, we demonstrate time-lapse, three-dimensional (3D) WISE-CARS imaging of nanotags in live cells as well as label-free detection of adenine released from S. aureus.

Automated summary

This study introduces a wide-field surface-enhanced coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (WISE-CARS) microscope for monitoring nanotags in live cells and label-free detection of metabolic molecules. The microscope achieves high imaging speed and resolution for spectral focusing of femtosecond lasers, allowing for rapid hyperspectral imaging of over 1 million Raman spectra.