A camera which can capture images at some 6 million frames a second has been built by a team at the University of California
, Los Angeles.
Researchers at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have developed a camera that captures images roughly a thousand times faster than any existing conventional camera.
No longer needing CMOS or CCD technology, the new camera uses Serial Time-Encoded Amplified Microscopy (STEAM) technology which works by shining an infra-red laser onto whatever you want to photograph. This laser emits a different wavelength for each pixel captured onto an object.
“It then converts each pulse to a serial data stream that resembles the data in a fibre optic network rather than the signal coming out of a camera,” explained the researchers. “Using a technique known as amplified dispersive Fourier transform, these laser pulses, each containing an entire picture, are amplified and simultaneously stretched in time to the point that they are slow enough to be captured with an electronic digitiser.”
Even though this is the fastest camera in the world reports suggest it can only produce an image composed of just 3,000 pixels but the team hope to produce a camera that can compete with others in the commercial digital market.
A video demonstrating how the technology works can be seen on ePHOTOzine.tv.