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US and Canadian researchers have used ultrashort laser pulses to develop a camera capable of filming 10 trillion frames per second.
The team, from the National Institute of Scientific Research at the University of Quebec (INRS) and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), says the camera is the fastest in the world. Known as T-CUP, the device effectively freezes time and sees how phenomena such as light itself behave extremely slowly.
The researchers first became interested in compressed ultra-fast photography (UPC), a technique capable of capturing about 100 billion images per second. In order to incorporate the ultrashort laser pulses needed at a much higher rate, the new T-CUP system was developed on the basis of a femtosecond scanning camera which also involves a type of acquisition of data used in applications such as tomography.
"We knew that using only a femtosecond scanning camera, the quality of the image would be limited," said Professor Lihong Wang, director of the Caltech Optical Imaging Laboratory (COIL). "To improve this, we added another camera that acquires a static image. In combination with the image acquired by the femtosecond scanning camera, we can use what is called a radon transformation to get high quality images while recording ten trillion dollars per second. "
According to the team, the camera has set a world record for real-time imaging speed and could be used to power a new generation of high-performance applications in materials science and biomedical devices. The very first time that it was used, it captured in real time the temporal focus of a single femtosecond laser pulse. This process was recorded in 25 images taken at an interval of 400 femtoseconds and detailed the shape, intensity and angle of inclination of the light pulse.
"It's a feat in itself," said Jinyang Liang, former COIL engineer, lead author of the book, which appears in Light: Science & Applications. "But we are already seeing opportunities to increase the speed up to a quadrillion (10 exp 15) frames per second!"
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