The field of ultrafast science is dependent on either ultrashort laser pulse technology or ultrafast passive detection. While there exists a plethora of sub-picosecond laser pulse solutions

streak cameras are singular in providing sub-picosecond passive imaging capabilities. Therefore

their use in fields ranging from medicine to physics is prevalent. Streak cameras attain such temporal resolutions by converting signal photons to electrons. However

the Coulomb repulsion force spreads these electrons spatiotemporally aggravating streak cameras’ temporal resolution and dynamic range—an effect that increases in severity in ultrafast applications where electrons are generated nearly instantaneously. While many electro-optical solutions have been proposed and successfully implemented

this issue remains as a challenge for all sub-picosecond streak camera technology. Instead of resorting to electro-optical solutions

in this work

we present an all-optical approach based on the combination of photon tagging and spatial lock-in detection with a technique called periodic shadowing—that is directly applicable to all generations of streak cameras. We have demonstrated that this accessible all-optical solution

consisting of a single externally applied optical component

results in (a) a >3× improvement in dynamic range

(b) a 25% increase in temporal resolution

and (c) a reduction of background noise levels by a factor of 50

which

when combined

allows for a markedly improved accuracy in the measurement of ultrafast signals.