Fig. 1. (a) Schematic diagram and (b) experimental setup of FINCOPA. OIC-1 to OIC-4, optical imaging converters; B, barrier; M, mirror; BS, beam splitter; SHG, second-harmonic generator; WS, wavelength separator; NCPI, noncollinear plasma interferometer (details in the Appendix); OIS-1 to OIS-4, optical imaging systems; NCOPA-1 to NCOPA-4, noncollinear optical parametric amplifiers; DL-1 to DL-4, delay lines; BSG, beam splitter group; L1 to L4: lenses, CCD-1 to CCD-4, charge-coupled devices; and PS, pulse stretcher.

Fig. 2. (a) Static image of a plasma grating. The propagation of the pump pulse is in the x direction. (b) The recorded one-dimensional intensity profile along the vertical white line in (a). (c) 16 idler images of the grating at 16 different moments were recorded by the pump–probe method. (d) The modulation evolution of the grating across the white lines of each image versus time delay.

Fig. 3. Four images recorded in the single-shot mode at four moments: (a) 0, 100, 200, and 300 fs; (b) 0, 200, 400, and 600 fs; (c) 1, 2, 3, and 4 ps; and (d) 5, 8, 20, and 30 ps. The time-dependent modulations of the grating across the white lines are presented in (e)–(h), respectively. (For the whole evolutionary process over time for plasma grating, see Video S1, MP4, 349 kB [URL: https://doi.org/10.1117/1.AP.2.5.056002.1]; (a) see Video S2, MP4, 79 kB [URL: https://doi.org/10.1117/1.AP.2.5.056002.2]; (b) see Video S3, MP4, 82 kB [URL: https://doi.org/10.1117/1.AP.2.5.056002.3]; (c) see Video S4, MP4, 103 kB [URL: https://doi.org/10.1117/1.AP.2.5.056002.4]; (d) see Video S5, MP4, 116 kB, [URL: https://doi.org/10.1117/1.AP.2.5.056002.5].

Fig. 4. Normalized modulations of the plasma grating across the white lines of each image versus time from 0 to 30 ps obtained by the pump–probe method (red marks) or by single-shot framing imaging (blue marks) for a magnification ratio of (a) 3× and (b) 2×.

Fig. 5. (a) The modulation index versus the spatial coordinate; (b) the modulation index versus time at four different positions shown in (c); and (d) the evolution of exciting pulse intensity along the x direction.

Fig. 6. (a)–(d) Four frame images of the ultrafast rotating optical field recorded in the single-shot mode at 15 Tfps (Video S6, MP4, 47 kB [URL: https://doi.org/10.1117/1.AP.2.5.056002.6]).

Fig. 7. (a) Setup of the plasma grating generation, an NCI. M, mirror; MG1 and MG2, mirror groups; and BS, beam splitter. (b) Setup of the ultrafast rotating optical lattice generation.³⁵ SPG, spiral phase generator; M1 to M4, mirrors; BS1 and BS2, beam splitters; and DL, delay line.