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Current issue

ELEKTRO 12/2021 was released on December 1st 2021. Its digital version will be available immediately.

Topic: Measurement, testing, quality care

Market, trade, business
What to keep in mind when changing energy providers

SVĚTLO (Light) 6/2021 was released 11.29.2021. Its digital version will be available immediately.

Fairs and exhibitions
Designblok, Prague International Design Festival 2021
Journal Světlo Competition about the best exhibit in branch of light and lighting at FOR ARCH and FOR INTERIOR fair

Professional literature
The new date format for luminaires description

Shooting at the speed of light

9. 12. 2014 | |

Light reflectionFor most of us, high-speed image capture, say 120 or 240 frames per second, is enough to get a good look at stuff happening in the blink of an eye -- like a water droplet hitting the ground or a Bichon Frisé snagging his favorite ball. For faster subjects, industrial-strength high-speed cameras can grab tens of thousands of frames per second (or more). But when your rapidly moving target is light itself, you're going to need something a bit quicker -- to the tune of 100 billion fps, according to Nature.

Using a technique called "compressed ultrafast photography" (CUP), researchers at Washington University in St. Louis can track light as it travels and interacts with objects. It's a new spin on the streak camera method, where a sensor moves along with the light to record its motion. Previous streak camera setups have been limited to narrow, one-dimensional views, but the CUP technique allows for two-dimensional image capture. One example video shows a laser pulse sauntering by and reflecting off a mirror in a few tens of picoseconds (trillionths of a second).

 

Further reading at engadget.com
Image credit: Nature