Ghost imaging (GI) enables reconstruction of the image of an object by measuring the intensity correlation of two beams, neither of which independently carries the spatial characteristics of the object. By exploiting the space-time duality, GI has been extended from the spatial domain to the time domain, and has been successfully demonstrated in the optical regime. This article reports on the experimental demonstration of acoustic GI in the time domain. Using ultrasound instead of photons, we created high-quality ghost images of a temporal object, even in the presence of strong ambient noise. Our work offers a fresh approach for imaging disturbance-sensitive acoustic signals, and could open the gateway to identifying new approaches in acoustic sensing, dynamic imaging, and communications.

• Received 30 October 2019
• Revised 3 March 2020
• Accepted 15 May 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.13.064044