The quest for faster hyper-spectral imaging with Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Spectroscopy (CARS) is triggering much new research around the world.  It has a huge potential in medicine for diagnostics, such as detection of cancer or the detection of tumor cells in-vivo. By making the technique faster and more reliable, it will permit hyper-spectral imaging of living cells in-situ and help enable direct diagnostics during a medical examination or surgery.

The approach uncovered by Mohler et al. to develop CARS is original and probably the most promising for future applications. Using two frequency combs from two different lasers with around 1 GHz repetition rate, the speed of acquisition of single spectra can be boosted to the kHz range. The signal-to-noise ratio, the broadband coverage and the resolution achieved are very promising for detecting and distinguishing a large range of biological and chemical species. Developing the technique even further with higher repetition rates and stronger pulses demands some technological development, but the perspective of video-rate hyper-spectral imaging of living cells with dual-comb CARS is now at reach.

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