World's fastest freezes time at 10 trillion frames per second

What happens when a new technology is so specific that it operates on a scale beyond our characterization capabilities? For example, the lasers used at INRS produce ultrashort pulses in the femtosecond range (10^-15 s), which is far too short to visualize. Though some measurements are possible, says INRS professor and ultrafast imaging specialist Jinyang Liang. He and his colleagues, made by Caltech's Lihong Wang, have developed what they call T-CUP: the world's fastest camera, capable of capturing 10 trillion¹³) frames per second (Fig. 1). This new camera literally makes it possible to freeze time to see phenomena-even light-in extremely slow motion.

In recent years, the junction between innovations in non-linear optics and imaging has opened the door to new and highly efficient methods for microscopic analysis of dynamic phenomena in biology and physics. Aimed at a high-speed image of a single image in real time.

Using current imaging techniques, pulsed laser ultrashort measurements must be repeated many times, which is appropriate for some types of inert samples, but not for others. For example, laser-engraved glass can tolerate only a single laser pulse, leaving less than a picosecond to capture the results. In such a case, the imaging technique must be able to capture the whole process in real time.

Compressed ultrafast photography (CUP) was a good starting point. At 100 billion frames per second, this method approached, but did not meet, the specifications required to integrate femtosecond lasers. To improve on the concept, the new T-CUP system has been developed based on a femtosecond streak camera that also incorporates a data acquisition type used in such applications as tomography.

"Professor Lihong Wang, the Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering at Caltech and the Director of the Caltech Optical Imaging Laboratory (COIL), said. "So to improve this, we add another camera that acquires a static image.Combined with the image acquired by the femtosecond streak camera, we can use what is called a Radon transformation to get high-quality images while recording ten trillion frames per second. "

Setting the world record for real-time imaging speed, T-CUP can power a new generation of microscopes for biomedical, materials science, and other applications. This camera represents a fundamental shift, making it possible to analyze interactions between light and matter at an unparalleled temporal resolution.

The first time it was used, the ultrafast camera broke ground by capturing the temporal focus of a single femtosecond laser pulse in real time (Fig. 2). This process was recorded in 25 frames taken at an interval of 400 femtoseconds and detailed light pulse shape, intensity, and angle of inclination.

"It's an accomplishment in itself," says Jinyang Liang, the senior author of this work, who was an engineer in the field of research, "but we already see possibilities for increasing the speed to up to one quadrillion (10 exp 15 ) frames per second! " Speeds like that are sure to offer insight into as-yet undetectable secrets of the interactions between light and matter.

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More information:
Jinyang Liang et al, Single-shot real-time femtosecond imaging of temporal focusing, Light: Science & Applications (2018). DOI: 10.1038 / s41377-018-0044-7