The Washington University team of biomedical engineering has developed a 2-D camera capable of capturing events at an incredible speed of 100 trillion frames per second. Lihong Wang (Doctor of Biomedical Engineering), and his team developed a compressed ultrafast photography technique (CUP) at the School of Engineering & Applied Science. Researchers have created movies from single-laser shots of four physical phenomena. These include refraction and laser pulse reflection. They also used faster-than-light propagation of non-information. Wang and his colleagues claim that the images provide new perspectives in scientific exploration and are entertaining, awe-inspiring and inspiring. Washington University, St. Louis. Photo by Dr. Wang. A ray of light travels through the air Dr. Wang stated that “for the first time humans can see light pulses while flying.” This technique increases the imaging frame rate by orders-of-magnitude, so we are now in a new regime that opens up new visions. “Every new technique, particularly one of quantum leaps forward, is always followed by a multitude of new discoveries. CUP is our hope for new scientific discoveries – some that we don’t know yet. This is a set of tools that can be used with powerful microscopes and telescopes to record natural and physical phenomena. The actual images can be created on a personal computer (personal computer) after the data has been gathered. This technology is known as computational imaging. Two National Institutes of Health grants funded the development of this technology. Richard Conroy (President of Optic Imaging at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering), part of the NIH said that this is an important advance and the kind of innovative work these high-risk NIH grants are meant to support. This ultra-fast camera has the potential to significantly enhance our understanding and build better models complex dynamical systems and biological interactions. The potential for use in astronomy or forensics by Dr. Lihong Wang. (Photo: Washington University, St. Louis). Wang thinks the technology can also be used in the fields of forensics as well as astronomy. With its ultra-rapid frame rates, Wang could examine the temporal activity of supernovae that have occurred far away. CUP can be used to reproduce bullet paths, which could open up Kennedy assassination conspiracies and allow for more precise analysis of strange physics behind the “magic bullet”. Wang and his team basically added parts and algorithms to an already existing technology – the streak camera, which records intensity variations in light pulses with time. A streak camera can be super fast, but it only provides a 1-dimensional view. This is analogous to seeing a horse racing through a distant vertical slit. Dr. Wang stated that the 2-D view was more realistic to what is actually seen in real life. Washington University says Wang’s CUP work pushes the boundaries of fundamental Physics and deep imaging of biological tissue, which is one of Wang’s specialties. Dr. Wang stated that fluorescence was an important part of biological technology. CUP is able to capture the lives of fluorescent proteins at light speed. He thinks the CUP could be an astronomy game changer. Combining CUP imaging and the Hubble Telescope will give us the best spatial resolution and highest temporal solution using CUP. He said that this combination will lead to new scientific discoveries. Citation: Single-shot compressed ultrafast photo at one hundred billion frames/second,” Liang Gao Jinyang Liang and Chiye Li & Lihong V. Wang. Nature 516, (04 2014)December 1038/nature14005.
Washington University develops a 100 billion frame per second 2-D camera
