A method and system are presented for producing an output coherent anti-stokes Raman scattering (CARS) signal of a medium. The method comprises generation of a unitary optical excitation pulse that carries a pump photon, a Stokes photon and a probe photon; and inducing a CARS process in the medium by exciting the medium by the at least one such unitary optical excitation pulse. Strong coherent non resonant background, a major problem in single-pulse CARS, is reduced by orders of magnitude by using phase-only pulse shaping or completely supressed by using phase-and-polarisation shaped pulses.
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