Implementation of temporal ptychography algorithm, i2PIE, for improved single-beam coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering measurements

We present an improvement on the signal-to-background of single-beam coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (SB-CARS) spectroscopy measurements for systems employing ultrafast supercontinuum sources based on all-normal dispersion photonic crystal fibers. Improvements to the signal-to-background arise in the use of a new pulse-reconstruction algorithm based on temporal ptychography, i 2 P I E . A simple SB-CARS strategy is used to measure the spectrum of para-xylene, where the supercontinuum pulses used are compressed using multiphoton intrapulse interference phase scan (MIIPS) and, for the first time to the best of our knowledge, i 2 P I E using the same single-beam setup. With the i 2 P I E implementation, the signal-to-background is improved by nearly a factor of 4 in comparison with MIIPS. More notably, the integrated SB-CARS spectral intensity is increased by a factor of 6.5.