Streak camera

Streak cameras ( streak camera ) can be used to measure very fast processes with time resolution. Dispensing with a spatial dimension of the subject instead, they can represent the time line in it. In the optical spectroscopy to time resolutions in the range of a few picoseconds are needed.

The principle of a streak camera is following this: Two optical pulses with a time delay of? T strike the photocathode of the streak camera on and release electrons from there. These are accelerated and passed through a time-dependent electric field. Since the electrons are knocked out by the time offset at different times from the photocathode, through both different electric fields and are thus different distraction. Then the resulting space - defined separation can now be used to infer the time offset of the electron, and thus of the optical pulses.

Today's cameras provide temporal resolutions in the range of femtoseconds. The end of 2011 ensured researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology stir when they introduced a value based on the streak camera technology apparatus that can make 600 billion frames per second. This camera can be, for example, observe the propagation of light or photons.

Older streak cameras used a rotating mirror to run the image of a gap about a film. Due to the uncertain position of the slit image at a given time outside of these cameras offered a trigger output with adjustable time delay, which had to be used to also trigger the event to be photographed when the shutter is released.