Single-shot ultrafast imaging attaining 70 trillion frames per second

Peng Wang,Jinyang Liang,Lihong V Wang

doi:10.1038/s41467-020-15745-4

Abstract

Real-time imaging of countless femtosecond dynamics requires extreme speeds orders of magnitude beyond the limits of electronic sensors. Existing femtosecond imaging modalities either require event repetition or provide single-shot acquisition with no more than 1013 frames per second (fps) and 3 × 102 frames. Here, we report compressed ultrafast spectral photography (CUSP), which attains several new records in single-shot multi-dimensional imaging speeds. In active mode, CUSP achieves both 7 × 1013 fps and 103 frames simultaneously by synergizing spectral encoding, pulse splitting, temporal shearing, and compressed sensing—enabling unprecedented quantitative imaging of rapid nonlinear light-matter interaction. In passive mode, CUSP provides four-dimensional (4D) spectral imaging at 0.5 × 1012 fps, allowing the first single-shot spectrally resolved fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (SR-FLIM). As a real-time multi-dimensional imaging technology with the highest speeds and most frames, CUSP is envisioned to play instrumental roles in numerous pivotal scientific studies without the need for event repetition.

Highlights

Real-time imaging of countless femtosecond dynamics requires extreme speeds orders of magnitude beyond the limits of electronic sensors
The compressed ultrafast spectral photography (CUSP) system (Fig. 1a) consists of an imaging section and an illumination section. It can work in either active or passive mode, depending on whether a specially engineered illumination beam is required for imaging[12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19]
The imaging section is shared by both modes, while the illumination section is for active mode only

Summary

Introduction

Real-time imaging of countless femtosecond dynamics requires extreme speeds orders of magnitude beyond the limits of electronic sensors. Over the past decades, imaging technologies based on silicon sensors, such as CCD and CMOS, were extensively improved to offer imaging speeds up to millions of frames per second (fps)[1] They fall short in capturing a rich variety of extremely fast phenomena, such as ultrashort light propagation[2], radiative decay of molecules[3], soliton formation[4], shock wave propagation[5], nuclear fusion[6], photon transport in diffusive media[7], and morphologic transients in condensed matters[8]. CUP’s frame rate relies on the streak camera’s capability in deflecting electrons, and its sequence depth (300 frames) is tightly constrained by the number of sensor pixels in the shearing direction

Methods

Results

Conclusion