Fast signal analysis in Rotating-Polarization CARS microscopy

Rotating Polarization Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Spectroscopy (RP-CARS) is a novel approach to CARS microscopy that takes advantage of polarization-dependent selection rules in order to gain information about molecule orientation anisotropy and direction within the optical point spread function. However, in the original implementation of this technique, the lock-in amplifier-based acquisition was quite time demanding. Here we present a new software-based approach that permits a great speed-up in the RP-CARS images acquisition process.