Pulsed digital holography system recording ultrafast process of the femtosecond order

We report, for the first time to our knowledge, a pulsed digital microholographic system with spatial angular multiplexing for recording the ultrafast process of the femtosecond order. The optimized design of the two sets of subpulse-train generators in this system makes it possible to implement a digital holographic recording with spatial angular multiplexing of a frame interval of the femtosecond order, while keeping the incident angle of the object beams unchanged. Three pairs of amplitude and phase images from the same view angle digitally reconstructed by the system demonstrated the ultrafast dynamic process of laser-induced ionization of ambient air at a wavelength of 800 nm, with a time resolution of 50 fs and a frame interval of 300 fs. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.