Super Slow-Motion Camera

Slow motion just got a whole lot slower, with a camera sensor able to film action at 1 million frames per second.

The black and white device is quick enough to capture impulses hurtling through firing nerve cells, and its resolution is good enough to film the microsecond-long pulse-like nerve signals that speed through networks of neurons at up to 180 kilometres per hour.

Capturing frames that last one-millionth of a second requires great sensitivity to light, as well as precise timing. The device uses an array of single-photon detectors, or SPADs, each hooked up to a tiny stopwatch. The stopwatch records when the SPAD is hit by an incoming photon, with an accuracy of around 100 picoseconds.

Each SPAD and its timer together act as a single-pixel camera, a setup that has been used for several years, says Edoardo Charbon at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. [Read more]

By Colin Barras, 28th October 2009, New Scientist: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18051-super-slowmotion-camera-can-follow-firing-neurons.html