  With the advent of laser frequency combs, coherent light sources that offer
equally-spaced sharp lines over a broad spectral bandwidth have become
available. One decade after revolutionizing optical frequency metrology,
frequency combs hold much promise for significant advances in a growing number
of applications including molecular spectroscopy. Despite its intriguing
potential for the measurement of molecular spectra spanning tens of nanometers
within tens of microseconds at Doppler-limited resolution, the development of
dual-comb spectroscopy is hindered by the extremely demanding high-bandwidth
servo-control conditions of the laser combs. Here we overcome this difficulty.
We experimentally demonstrate a straightforward concept of real-time dual-comb
spectroscopy, which only uses free-running mode-locked lasers without any
phase-lock electronics, a posteriori data-processing, or the need for expertise
in frequency metrology. The resulting simplicity and versatility of our new
technique of adaptive dual-comb spectroscopy offer a powerful transdisciplinary
instrument that may spark off new discoveries in molecular sciences.
