World's fastest camera shoots at 10 trillion frames per second

midian182

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In brief: Researchers have developed what they say is the world’s fastest camera. Dubbed the T-CUP, it can capture 10 trillion frames per second, allowing it to ‘freeze time’ and see light in super-slow motion.

Researchers from Quebec University’s Institute national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) began by looking at compressed ultrafast photography (CUP), which can capture images at around 100 billion frames per second. T-CUP improves on this technique as it’s based on a femtosecond (one quadrillionth of a second) streak camera that also incorporates a data acquisition type, which is commonly used in applications like tomography.

“We knew that by using only a femtosecond streak camera, the image quality would be limited,” says Professor Lihong Wang, the Bren Professor of Medial Engineering and Electrical Engineering at Caltech and the Director of Caltech Optical Imaging Laboratory (COIL). “So to improve this, we added 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 obtain high-quality images while recording ten trillion frames per second.”

The new camera was able to capture the temporal focusing of a single femtosecond laser pulse in real time—a process that was recorded in 25 frames taken at an interval of 400 femtoseconds. It detailed the light pulse’s shape, intensity, and angle of inclination.

“This new camera literally makes it possible to freeze time to see phenomena - and even light - in extremely slow motion,” said lead author Jinyang Liang. “Although some measurements are possible, nothing beats a clear image.”

“It's an achievement in itself, but we already see possibilities for increasing the speed to up to one quadrillion (1015) frames per second!”

Now that it’s set a world record for real-time imaging speed, T-CUP is expected to power a new generation of microscopes for medical and other applications.

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But can it raytrace Crysis?

Now seriously... @Nobina, that's why we need these super slowmo cameras, so we can better understand 'reality'.
 
A human eye can't see beyond 25 frames per second.

Here's a simple test: Write a program that runs at 60Hz. Every frame, paint the entire screen black, but randomly insert one white frame into every 60 frame period. Can you distinguish the white frame? If yes, then you can "see" at 60Hz.

[And yes, I ran this test and can confirm the human eye can distinguish individual frames up to 120Hz; my monitor topped out there.]
 
Here's a simple test: Write a program that runs at 60Hz. Every frame, paint the entire screen black, but randomly insert one white frame into every 60 frame period. Can you distinguish the white frame? If yes, then you can "see" at 60Hz.

[And yes, I ran this test and can confirm the human eye can distinguish individual frames up to 120Hz; my monitor topped out there.]
lol... he was being a troll... and it's not relevant anyways... the point of a microscope (which is what this tech will be installed into) is to capture things the human eye CAN'T see anyways.... and while we can quibble over the actual limitation - be it 25FPS or 150FPS - clearly 10 trillion FPS is well beyond our capabilities... hence the awesomeness of this camera!
 
"“This new camera literally makes it possible to freeze time to see phenomena - and even light - in extremely slow motion,” said lead author Jinyang Liang. "

This person does not understand what time or light are. Which is amazing on its own, possibly a scientific award exists for people who fumble a topic this poorly? And then this person goes on to use the word "motion". It's an incredible piece of poetry if you break it down!
 
"“This new camera literally makes it possible to freeze time to see phenomena - and even light - in extremely slow motion,” said lead author Jinyang Liang. "

This person does not understand what time or light are. Which is amazing on its own, possibly a scientific award exists for people who fumble a topic this poorly? And then this person goes on to use the word "motion". It's an incredible piece of poetry if you break it down!
Really? Pray explain to the rest of us?
 
We really need indicators so people know when not to feed them... Too many innocents getting suckered in. Perhaps an avatar mouseover that looks like
gremlin.jpg
 
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