Emerging applications of stimulated Raman scattering microscopy in materials science

Stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) is a nonlinear Raman scattering process that can amplify Raman scattering by up to 10⁸ times under modern microscopy configuration. SRS microscopy has emerged as a powerful chemical imaging technique due to its high chemical, spatial, and temporal resolution. While SRS microscopy was originally designed for biomedical applications, it has drawn increasingly more attention from the materials science community in recent years. The high-speed and high-chemical sensitivity of SRS are attractive for both high-throughput material characterizations and capturing transient dynamics in chemical transport and reactions. It has been explored in various topics, such as 2D materials, energy storage and conversion, and polymerizations with great success. In this review, we discuss principles, instrumentation, and current applications of SRS microscopy in materials science, followed by our perspectives on future exciting topics to be studied by SRS microscopy.