A 2-GHz discrete-spectrum waveband-division microscopic imaging system

Limited by dispersion-induced pulse overlap, the frame rate of serial time-encoded amplified microscopy is confined to the megahertz range. Replacing the ultra-short mode-locked pulse laser by a multi-wavelength source, based on waveband-division technique, a serial time stretch microscopic imaging system with a line scan rate of in the gigahertz range is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. In this study, we present a surface scanning imaging system with a record line scan rate of 2 GHz and 15 pixels. Using a rectangular spectrum and a sufficiently large wavelength spacing for waveband-division, the resulting 2D image is achieved with good quality. Such a superfast imaging system increases the single-shot temporal resolution towards the sub-nanosecond regime.