Direct observation of phonon-polariton propagation was made possible by real-space imaging, in which the spatial and temporal profiles of phonon-polaritons are imaged onto a CCD camera using Talbot phase-to-amplitude conversion. This by itself was an extraordinary breakthrough. It was the first time that electromagnetic waves were imaged directly, appearing much like ripples in a pond when a rock plummets through the water's surface (see Fig. 3). Real-space imaging is the preferred detection technique in polaritonics, though other more conventional techniques like optical Kerr-gating, time resolved diffraction, interferometric probing, and terahertz field induced second-harmonic generation are useful in some applications where real-space imaging is not easily employed. For example, patterned materials with feature sizes on the order of a few tens of micrometres cause parasitic scattering of the imaging light. Phonon-polariton detection is then only possible by focusing a more conventional probe, like those mentioned before, into an unblemished region of the crystal.