Simultaneous time and frequency detection in femtosecond coherent Raman spectroscopy. II. Application to acetonitrile

The preceding paper showed that, in principle, a high-resolution coherent Raman spectrum can be recovered using femtosecond probe pulses by combined detection in both time and frequency. This measurement is possible even when the pulses are too broad in frequency for conventional frequency-domain spectroscopy and too broad in time for conventional time-domain spectroscopy. In this paper, the method is tested on experimental coherent anti-stokes Raman spectroscopy data from acetonitrile. Compared to theoretical models, experimental data are complicated by noise and incomplete knowledge of the pulse structure. Despite these complications, most of the information in the Raman spectrum is recovered from the data: weak transitions are detected and natural-linewidth resolution is achieved across an 800 cm(-1) spectral range. However, circumstances in which experimental limitations result in missed features or ambiguities in the recovered spectrum are also identified. These results suggest where improvements in measurement and data analysis can be made.