High-speed mid-infrared imaging based on time-multiplexed structured detection

High-speed mid-infrared (MIR) videography constitutes an enabling tool to monitor and analyze various dynamics in scientific research and industrial applications. However, the frame rate of conventional MIR imagers is typically limited by readout electronics and detection sensitivity, especially for large spatial formats with massive pixels. Here, a high-speed MIR upconversion imaging system based on time-multiplexed nonlinear structured pumping is proposed and implemented. By dynamically encoding spatial frequencies onto the pump field, the system enables all-optical modulation of infrared motion scenes, allowing efficient temporal multiplexing and real-time image reconstruction. Experimental results confirm that this method achieves high-spatial-resolution MIR imaging under ambient conditions and breaks the trade-off between spatial resolution and frame rate, enhancing the imaging speed by an order of magnitude to 10 kHz at megapixel formats. The presented approach can be readily extended to far-infrared or terahertz spectral regions, aimed at high-throughput and high-sensitivity observation of transient phenomena with complex temporal dynamics.