World's fastest camera can capture movement of light
Scientists have developed a
super-fast camera that can film at an unprecedented rate of five
trillion images per second, fast enough to visualise the movement of
light.
A research group at Lund University in Sweden successfully
filmed how light travels a distance corresponding to the thickness of a
paper. Currently, highspeed cameras film 1,00,000 images per second. The
new technology is based on an innovative algorithm, and
captures several coded images in one picture. It then sorts them into a
video sequence.
The method involves exposing what you are filming
to light in the form of laser
flashes where each light pulse is given a unique code.The object
reflects the light flashes which merge into the single photograph.
The camera could be used to better understand rapid processes. “This
does not apply to all processes in nature, but a few, for example,
explosions, plasma flashes, turbulent combustion, brain activity in
animals and chemical reactions. We are now able to film such extremely
short processes,“ said researcher Elias Kristensson.
