UC San Diego

A new nonlinear optical process, named enhanced stimulated Raman scattering (ESRS), is reported for the first time from resonance Raman in β-carotene-methanol solution. It is well known that absorption decreases the efficiency of the nonlinear optical and laser processes; however, we observed enhanced stimulated Raman peaks at the first and second Stokes from methanol solvent at 2834 cm^-1 with the addition of β-carotene solutes. This enhanced SRS effect in methanol is attributed to the resonance Raman (RR) process in β-carotene, which creates a significant number of vibrations from RR and the excess vibrations are transferred to methanol from anharmonic vibrational interactions between the β-carotene solutes and the methanol solvent, and consequently leads to the increased Raman gain.