Abstract: There is provided a system for generating a spectrogram signal representative of a spectrogram of an initial signal, the system comprising: a temporal phase modulator for receiving the initial signal and quadratically modulating a temporal phase of the initial signal in a periodic series of consecutive quadratic time lenses in order to obtain a temporal phase modulated signal; a spectral phase modulator for quadratically modulating a spectral phase of the temporal phase modulated signal to obtain a given signal representative of a series of consecutive spectra; and a sensor for detecting the given signal in a temporal domain in order to obtained a sensed signal and outputting the sensed signal, the sensed signal being representative of the spectrogram of the initial signal.