Femtosecond broadband stimulated Raman spectroscopy

Femtosecond broadband stimulated Raman spectroscopy (FSRS) is a new technique where a narrow bandwidth picosecond Raman pump pulse and a red-shifted broadband femtosecond Stokes probe pulse (with or without time delay between the pulses) act on a sample to produce a high resolution Raman gain spectrum with high efficiency and speed, free from fluorescence background interference. It can reveal vibrational structural information and dynamics of stationary or transient states. Here, the quantum picture for femtosecond broadband stimulated Raman spectroscopy (FSRS) is used to develop the semiclassical coupled wave theory of the phenomenon and to derive an expression for the measurable Raman gain in FSRS. The semiclassical theory is applied to study the dependence of lineshapes in FSRS on the pump-probe time delay and to deduce vibrational dephasing times in cyclohexane in the ground state.