Sequentially Timed All-optical Mapping Photography

― Optical Imaging for Visualizing Ultrafast Dynamic Phenomena ―

Abstract

High-speed imaging is a powerful tool for studying dynamic phenomena and has played a critical role in discovery of fast processes. Sequentially timed all-optical mapping photography (STAMP), which was reported in 2014, is a method for capturing ultrafast events on picosecond and femtosecond timescales without repetitive measurement. The operation of STAMP is based on the image mapping from time domain to spatial domain with spectral manipulation techniques. To realize it, here we introduce two types of STAMP cameras: STAMP with spectral shaper and STAMP utilizing spectral filtering. STAMP with spectral shaper we developed can take motion pictures with 6 frames. To show the utility, we used it to obtain motion pictures of phonon-polariton dynamics, which was previously difficult to observe with conventional methods in a single shot. STAMP utilizing spectral filtering is an improved configuration for capturing 25 frames of ultrafast dynamics. We used it to monitor the plasma dynamics with the frame rate of 4.35 Tfps.