Patent ID: 8300228

Claim:
A method for identifying the presence of a target molecular species in a sample, the molecular species characterized by a plurality of vibrational modes and a Raman impulse response, the method comprising: a. defining at least one feature of an exciting electromagnetic pulse on a basis of features of the Raman impulse response of the target species; b. exciting the sample with the electromagnetic pulse; c. generating coherent stimulated scattered radiation; d. interfering the coherent stimulated radiation with a reference pulse so as to cross-correlate the coherent stimulated radiation and the reference pulse, the reference pulse characterized by a relative timing with respect to the exciting electromagnetic radiation; e. shaping the reference pulse for selectively enhancing a correlation with scatter of the target species; f. sweeping the delay time so as to measure correlation as a function of delay time; and g. determining the presence of the target species based at least on a specified criterion applied to correlation as a function of delay time.