Revisiting the Young's double slit experiment for background-free nonlinear Raman spectroscopy and microscopy.

In the Young's double slit experiment, the spatial shift of the interference pattern projected onto a screen is directly related to the phase difference between the fields diffracted by the two slits. We apply this property to fields emitted by nonlinear processes and thus demonstrate background-free coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering microscopy near an axial interface between a resonant and a nonresonant medium. This method is relevant to remove the nonresonant background in other coherent resonant processes.