Stroboscopic space tag for optical time-resolved measurements with a charge coupled device detector

Time-resolved measurements are extensively employed in the study of light-matter interaction at the nanoscale such as the exciton dynamics in semiconductors or the ultrafast intraband transitions in metals. Importantly, single-photon correlation, quantum state tomography, and other techniques devoted to the characterization of quantum optics systems rely on time-resolved experiments, whose resolution which is bound to the time response of the detector and related electronics. For this reason, multiplexing or beam deflection techniques have been recently proposed to overcome the detector resolution and thus measure the final photon distribution characteristics. Taking advantage of both strategies, in this work we present a simple method to obtain time-resolved light transients independently on the detector response. The method is based on the stroboscopic synchronization of a given optical signal after spatial tag of its time response. To illustrate the potential of the approach, we present a simple setup able to measure transient optical signals with a time interval per pixel < 1 ns, using conventional CCD camera optical detection with large integration times. The system response depends on the stroboscopic synchronization parameters but not on the detector time resolution. We illustrate the operation and resolution of the proposed technique, while providing a numerical simulation of its potential use in photon correlation experiments.