Quantitative chemical fingerprinting with coherent Raman microscopy

Microscopy has taken a firm place in many research fields. Coherent Raman scattering (CRS) microscopy offers the unique ability to perform chemically specific imaging with submicrometre resolution; Raman spectroscopy gives reliable molecular information e.g. on the presence of functional groups, molecular organization and interaction. Recent developments of coherent Raman spectroscopy such as coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering and stimulated Raman scattering have resulted in an increased sensitivity enabling rapid molecular specific micro-imaging. With this Hercules project a one-of-a-kind CRS microscopy is envisioned that enable for the first time to target the low-frequency vibrational fingerprint region which was not possible so far. With this setup several research questions will be targeted varying from materials science to biology. As an example three cases at the core of the participating research groups have been elaborated in this proposal:

1. understanding and improving heterogeneous catalysts,
2. elucidating the structure of silver cluster based phosphors,
3. resolving fat metabolism in small model organisms.