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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    8 months ago

    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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        8 months ago

        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!

        • Turun@feddit.de
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          8 months ago

          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.

        • RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          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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            8 months ago

            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.

    • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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      8 months ago

      I initially thought, “why would we need this,” but these two comments helped me readjust. I don’t need it but we’ll find a use for it.