The time resolved SBS and SRS research in heavy water and its application in CARS

•The time resolved property of SBS and BSRS affect CARS efficiency significantly.•A Dye cuvette can improve the time overlap of SBS and BSRS, and CARS efficiency.•The SBS and BSRS are ideal source for an alignment-free and low-cost CARS system.•The alignment-free, low-cost CARS system is a powerful tool in many applications.•The CARS system could be improved by increasing the BSRS efficiency in D2O. We present the time-resolved character of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) and backward stimulated Raman scattering (BSRS) in heavy water and its application in Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Scattering (CARS) technique. A nanosecond laser from a frequency-doubled Nd: YAG laser is introduced into a heavy water cell, to generate SBS and BSRS beams. The SBS and BSRS beams are collinear, and their time resolved characters are studied by a streak camera, experiment show that they are ideal source for an alignment-free CARS system, and the time resolved property of SBS and BSRS beams could affect the CARS efficiency significantly. By inserting a Dye cuvette to the collinear beams, the time-overlapping of SBS and BSRS could be improved, and finally the CARS efficiency is increased, even though the SBS energy is decreased. Possible methods to improve the efficiency of this CARS system are discussed too.