Knowledge Bank

One of the major advantages of coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy is the ability of this technique to reject fluorescence. Since the CARS signal is both spatially coherent and of higher frequency, sample fluorescence can be almost completely rejected. We have also found that the CARS spectra of fluorescent compounds can be resonance enhanced in the presence of fluorescence. The CARS spectra of several laser dyes will be presented and compared to the spectrum of the chromophore in the fluorescent protein GFP isolated from sea pansy (renilla).