  Image sensors are the backbone of many imaging technologies of great
importance to modern sciences, being particularly relevant in biomedicine. An
ideal image sensor should be usable through all the electromagnetic spectrum
(large bandwidth), it should be fast (millions of frames per second) to fulfil
the needs of many microscopy applications, and it should be cheap, in order to
ensure the sustainability of the healthcare system. However, current image
sensor technologies have fundamental limitations in terms of bandwidth, imaging
rate or price. In here, we briefly sketch the principles of an alternative
image sensor concept termed Single-pulse Photoacoustic Electromagnetic
Detection (SPEED). SPEED leverages the principles of optoacoustic
(photoacoustic) tomography to overcome several of the hard limitations of
todays image sensors. Specifically, SPEED sensors can operate with a massive
portion of the electromagnetic spectrum at high frame rate (millions of frames
per second) and low cost. Using simulations, we demonstrate the feasibility of
the SPEED methodology and we discuss the step towards its implementation.
