The trillion-frame-per-second camera

Get your hands on MIT’s new ultrafast camera and, according to its designers, anything in the universe can be viewed in slow motion, even the movement of photons through space.

It’s not surprising really, as the new imaging system developed by researchers at MIT’s Media Lab, Cambridge, US, is capable of capturing a staggering one trillion-frames-per-second.

The imaging system comprises of a streak camera (usually used to measure the variable intensity of light pulses) and a light source. The camera does not consist of a single traditional lens, it is made up of an array of five hundred sensors each triggered at one trillionth of a seconddelays.

The light source comes from a titanium sapphire laser that fires a continuous stream of identical pulses directed at the scene by mirrors.

Working simultaneously with the laser, the camera is only capable of capturing a one-dimensional image so the team must continually reposition its angle, using mirrors, to eventually build a two-dimensional video. It takes a mere nanosecond for light to scatter through a clear plastic bottle, however it would take nearly an hour for the data to be collected and turned into a moving image.

At this stage, only images captured in the lab can be recorded at this speed, as it is vital that the scene being filmed remains exactly the same in each shot. This is only possible if the camera and laser are synchronised precisely.