Dipartimento di Fisica

Last week Nature Reviews Methods Primers published a comprehensive overview of pump-probe Raman spectroscopy, focused on evaluating the applicability, adopting and building the method.

The authors, all members of the Femtoscopy group, discuss the breakthroughs brought about by non-linear optical regime, including critical considerations on the ultimate temporal resolution and capabilities to track ultrafast molecular events. Specifically, the Primer explores whether, why, when and how the temporal precision and frequency resolution of traditional time-resolved spontaneous Raman spectroscopy can be surpassed by its coherent counterpart (FSRS), while still adhering to the uncertainty principle.

The fundamental concepts behind FSRS and its most common experimental approaches are presented, critically discussing instrumentation details. Recent applications of FSRS from physics, chemistry and biology are showcased, demonstrating how this approach can facilitate cross-disciplinary studies. Finally, in their Outlook, the authors point to new directions for time resolved Raman-based approaches. Among them, they discuss how quantum light offers the potential solution to untangle temporal and spectral resolution, overcoming the unavoidable trade-off between temporal accuracy and structural sensitivity holding for classical light, paving the way for unprecedented insights into ultrafast photoreactions.

The work serves as a practical guide for setup design and implementation, data collection, AI-based analysis and modelling.

Nature Reviews Methods Primers features commissioned overviews of methods and techniques, including best practices for experimentation, analysis and applications. The accessible format ensures that the work published reaches the widest possible audience.

Autori: Giovanni Batignani, Carino Ferrante, Giuseppe Fumero, Miles Martinati, Tullio Scopigno