Ultrafast photonic time-stretch imaging using an optically transparent medium

A specially-designed optically transparent medium (OTM) is employed to map a pulse spectrum to a temporal waveform and utilize a single-pixel photodiode for detection at the MHz scale. We propose and demonstrate a feasible experimental arrangement for photonic time-stretch imaging (PTSI), composed of a compact OTM with a 200 x 180 x 10 mm volume, which results in 37 inner reflections and an 8.04 m propagation length of the light beam. The simulation results, realized by an optical pulse stretched from 40 fs to 2.4 ns, firmly verify the great potential for OTM-PTSI systems to be used in transient inspection and diagnosis applications.