Scientists have created a blazing-fast scientific camera that shoots images at an encoding rate of 156.3 terahertz (THz) to individual pixels — equivalent to 156.3 trillion frames per second.

Scientists have created a blazing-fast scientific camera that shoots images at an encoding rate of 156.3 terahertz (THz) to individual pixels — equivalent to 156.3 trillion frames per second. Dubbed SCARF (swept-coded aperture real-time femtophotography), the research-grade camera could lead to breakthroughs in fields studying micro-events that come and go too quickly for today’s most expensive scientific sensors.

SCARF has successfully captured ultrafast events like absorption in a semiconductor and the demagnetization of a metal alloy. The research could open new frontiers in areas as diverse as shock wave mechanics or developing more effective medicine.

    • lemmydripzdotz456@lemmy.world
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      6 个月前

      I was doing some napkin math for how many femtoseconds there are between each frame and how that compares to Planck time but this response does a better job capturing how cool this is.

        • HoratioHufnagel@lemmy.world
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          6 个月前

          A femtosecond is 10^-15 seconds. Tera Hertz frequency is equivalent to a period length of 10^-12 second, a pikosecond.

          So with 156 tera Hertz a frame is around 6.4 femtoseconds.

          Planck time is around 10^-43, so still some way to go until we reach the clock speed of our universe :)

          Hope I did that right!

          • RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world
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            6 个月前

            If they recorded at that speed for 1 hour and played it back at 1 frame per second, all the time since the Big Bang will have passed before they get through 40 minutes of recording.

            • Perfide@reddthat.com
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              6 个月前

              Almost, but not quite. A single second recording played at one fps would take roughly 5 million years to finish, so a 40 minute recording would take 12 billion years to finish at 1 fps. The big bang was 13.8 billion years ago.

          • Turun@feddit.de
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            6 个月前

            So, considering the speed of light is approximately 3e8m/s, a frame time of 6.4fs means light can move 1.92 micrometers per frame.

    • Altima NEO@lemmy.zipEnglish
      0·
      6 个月前

      Assuming they’re still around. The whole Rooster Teeth getting shut down by Warner Bros a few weeks ago.

    • WagnasT@iusearchlinux.fyiEnglish
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      6 个月前

      After seeing the one where they slam Dan’s face with a ball and you see his skull moving under his skin I realized there can be entire fields of study around insanely fast cameras. What we see in real time doesn’t even compare. Also the one where Gav shows how CRTs work is still my favorite.

  • ramble81@lemm.ee
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    6 个月前

    And if you were to watch it at 60Hz you would need 82+ years to watch that one second. Hope you know exactly where you’re wanting to look or can scrub it really fast!

    • possibly a cat@lemmy.ml
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      6 个月前

      I don’t know about R&D expenses, but the experimental device itself is described as low-cost and using off-the-shelf parts.

  • possibly a cat@lemmy.ml
    0·
    6 个月前

    I just lost an hour of my day reading the paper, but it was definitely worth it. And not just for the cute maple leaf video. Very cool development. I think it is going to facilitate a lot more research in many other fields.