  Dispersive Fourier transformation is a powerful technique in which the
spectrum of an optical pulse is mapped into a time-domain waveform using
chromatic dispersion. It replaces a diffraction grating and detector array with
a dispersive fiber and single photodetector. This simplifies the system and,
more importantly, enables fast real-time measurements. Here we describe a novel
ultrafast barcode reader and displacement sensor that employs
internally-amplified dispersive Fourier transformation. This technique
amplifies and simultaneously maps the spectrally encoded barcode into a
temporal waveform. It achieves a record acquisition speed of 25 MHz -- four
orders of magnitude faster than the current state-of-the-art.
