Magnified time-domain ghost imaging

Abstract

Ghost imaging allows the imaging of an object without directly seeing this object. Originally demonstrated in the spatial domain, it was recently shown that ghost imaging can be transposed into the time domain to detect ultrafast signals, even in the presence of distortion. We propose and experimentally demonstrate a temporal ghost imaging scheme which generates a 5× magnified ghost image of an ultrafast waveform. Inspired by shadow imaging in the spatial domain and building on the dispersive Fourier transform of an incoherent supercontinuum in an optical fiber, the approach overcomes the resolution limit of standard time-domain ghost imaging generally imposed by the detectors speed. The method can be scaled up to higher magnification factors using longer fiber lengths and light source with shorter duration.