Nature Photon. 8, 695–700 (2014)

Time-resolved measurements of ultrafast events can be obtained by using two different paths: either by recording a short burst of images at a high frame rate by using burst-mode cameras or by producing a time-resolved movie from repetitive pump–probe measurements, by varying the pump–probe time delay. Either way, the time-resolved imaging of events in the pico- and femtosecond regimes has so far been prevented by the limit on the maximum speed of the mechanical and electrical components of high-speed cameras. Now, Keisuke Goda, Ichiro Sakuma and colleagues propose an all-optical burst-mode camera that avoids the use of mechanical and electrical components. In their approach, a femtosecond laser pulse is discretized in sub-pulses that are used to image the sample at successive times within the femtosecond laser pulse. These discretized pulses are then spatially separated and analysed by an image sensor. In this way, plasma dynamics on the picosecond timescale and lattice vibrations on the femtosecond timescale were directly imaged. One can also imagine a number of future applications of this technique in ultrafast and non-repeatable processes.