  Since its first demonstration in the sixties, coherent anti-Stokes Raman
scattering (CARS) has become a powerful spectroscopic sensing tool with broad
applications in biology and chemistry. However, it is a complex nonlinear
optical process that often leads to the lacks of quantitative data outputs. In
this letter, we observe how CARS signal builds up gradually and demonstrate how
to control its deferral with laser-pulse shaping. A time-resolved three-color
CARS that involves a pair of driving broadband femtosecond pulses and delayed
shaped probe pulse is realized experimentally. Driving pulses are tuned to the
Raman-resonance onto the vibrational ring modes of pyridine and benzene
molecules. As a result, CARS-buildup is deferred in picoseconds as delayed
probe pulse width varies from 50 down to 10 cm-1. With off-resonant driving of
water molecules this effect, in contrary, does not occur. Laser control
predicting deferred resonant processes can serve as a novel and important
species-specific indicator in, e.g., machine learning applications for future
nonlinear optical spectroscopy.
