Enhancement Strategies for Stimulated Raman Scattering Microscopy

Stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscopy has emerged as a powerful chemical imaging platform that translates molecular bond vibrations into rapid visualization of biomolecules, metabolites, and drugs. As SRS moves from proof-of-concept imaging toward live cell analysis, thick tissue interrogation, biochemical readout, and computational histopathology, its further development is increasingly limited by coupled trade-offs among sensitivity, acquisition speed, spectral bandwidth, penetration depth, spatial resolution, and interpretability. This Review summarizes recent advances in enhancement strategies for SRS microscopy through four interconnected dimensions: signal, acquisition, light-field, and information engineering. Signal enhancement improves the detectability of weak Raman responses, acquisition enhancement increases imaging throughput and spectral accessibility, light-field enhancement extends SRS toward deep, volumetric, and super-resolution imaging, and information enhancement expands SRS from chemical mapping to multidimensional molecular analysis. Through this framework, we highlight how these enhancement strategies are enabling SRS microscopy to evolve into a more sensitive, faster, deeper, and more interpretable molecular imaging platform for biology, pathology, and precision medicine.