The fastest camera in the world with 10 trillion FPS has arrived and it can freeze time

A research team from the INRS University of Research recently built the world's fastest camera, called T-CUP. He is so fast that he is able to capture 100 trillion frames per second!

Although ultrafast cameras have been developed in recent years, T-CUP leaves them all in the dust.

This camera can now be used record real-time images at a very short time resolution, in a single exposure. It will be very useful to scientists in many fields and will open doors to explore issues such as interactions at the nanoscale between light and matter.

The INRS team designed the camera to record on film events taking place at the femtosecond. This means that it will have very useful applications for capturing images in slow motion of elements such as laser pulses.

"Nothing beats a clear picture"

Existing lasers at INRS produce ultra-short light pulses that previously were too fast to capture with existing imaging techniques. But not anymore.

Of course, some measures were possible before but "nothing beats a clear picture," says Professor INRS and specialist in high-speed imaging, Jinyang Liang.

The research team, led by Lihong Wang of Caltech, set about the task and developed this revolutionary new camera called T-CUP.

This new camera literally freezes time to see the phenomena – and even the light! – extremely slow way.

This type of device will probably prove valuable in other areas for observation of the microscopic field, especially dynamic phenomena in biology and physics.

T-CUP is twice as fast as its competitors

T-CUP was built on existing technology called compressed ultra-fast photography (CUP), a method of which he is capable 100 billion fps. This is very fast but not fast enough for INRS researchers and to capture what is happening at the femtosecond scale.

A femtosecond is equivalent to a quadrillion of a second, it is fast.

The team managed to combine a femtosecond scanning camera with a static camera. All captured images were then subjected to a technique called radon transformation.

"We knew that by using only a femtosecond scanning camera, the quality of the image would be limited," Lihong Wang said.

"To improve this, we added another camera that acquires a static image.With the image acquired by the femtosecond scanning camera, we can use what is called a radon transformation to obtain high quality images while recording ten trillion images per second.

The first results of his test are encouraging

The first results of the configuration were very encouraging. He was able to capture a single pulse of femtosecond laser light. He managed to record 25 images, each 400 femtoseconds a part.

This level of precision made it possible to show changes in the shape of light pulses over time. It also revealed the intensity and tilt angle of the laser with much better detail than ever before.

"It's a feat in itself," said Jinyang Liang, "But we're already seeing opportunities to increase speed to a quadrillion frames per second!"

The team plans to improve the system and break the record once again. Maybe even reach 10 trillion fps in the not too distant future!

The research was published in the journal Light: Science & Applications.