Say hello to the world’s fastest camera that is capable of capturing 4.4 trillion frames per second (FPS) and is known as STAMP – Sequentially Timed All-optical Mapping Photography. STAMP has been developed by two universities in Japan and is capable of taking pictures at 450×450 pixels. Reportedly, it is fast enough to be able to photograph the heat being conducted that, FYI, travels at a speed that is 1/6th the speed of light.
Universities that have come up with this flashy camera are the University of Tokyo and Keio University. According to the team of researchers behind this product; the camera makes use of a methodology known as femto-photography that is capable of capturing images in just a single burst without requiring the recursive measurements that are employed when you look at other ultra-high speed cameras. According to the team this is achieved by making use of an ultra-short laser pulse that is split into a number of discrete and unique pulses that then proceed to illuminate the target object via successive flashes. The entire scene, subsequently, is captured by making use of stroboscopic acquisition.
While carrying out the demonstration for this image capturing device, the team claims that it has used the camera to take images of lattice vibrational waves and plasma dynamics, (Google them to gain a better understanding) both phenomena that were quite difficult to capture with the previous methods of capturing images and that too in a single shot. The only downside to this awesome camera is its size; it measures in at 1 meter square and there is some really drastic miniaturization required in order to bring the camera down to a portable size.
The system has potential applications in physics, chemistry and plethora of other disciplines and owing to this fact one can easily speculate that the Japanese team behind this will be working day and night in order to come up with a portable version of this super-fast camera.