Incoherent-Light Temporal Imaging Based on a Temporal Pinspeck

Incoherent-light temporal imaging using a temporal pinhole camera has been recently proposed and demonstrated as a way to improve the key limitations of coherent temporal imaging systems. However, the energy efficiency of incoherent-light temporal imaging is greatly limited by the narrow temporal pinhole, which filters out most of the incoming light along the time domain. In this letter, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a novel incoherent-light temporal imaging scheme based on a temporal pinspeck, which is a time-domain equivalent of a spatial pinspeck. In contrast to a temporal pinhole, the temporal pinspeck keeps most of the incoming light, greatly improving the system's energy efficiency. In addition, the performance specifications of temporal-pinspeck-based systems, such as temporal apertures and resolutions, are subject to similar design tradeoffs as their temporal-pinhole-based counterparts.