This camera can capture 1 trillion pictures in a second

Scientists have developed a new camera technology that can capture as many as 1 trillion pictures in a second.

The camera, developed by the California Institute of Technology, can take pictures of transparent objects. The technology is being called as the phase-sensitive compressed ultrafast photography.

Professor Lihong Wang, who led the research, claims that the technology, which is still in its early development stage, will be very useful in the fields of chemistry, biology and physics.

To test the capabilities of the phase-sensitive compressed ultrafast photography, the researchers at Caltech imaged a laser pulse traveling through a piece of crystalline material and spread of a shockwave through water.

One can not only take photos with this new technology but can also record videos. Videos can be taken of transparent objects as well as ephemeral things such as shockwaves.

Elaborating upon the imaging system, Professor Wang told Phys.org, that the system combines high-speed photography system with "phase-contrast microscopy".

"What we've done is to adapt standard phase-contrast microscopy so that it provides very fast imaging, which allows us to image ultrafast phenomena in transparent materials," Wang was quoted as saying.

Phase contrast microscopy is primarily a technology that lets a person take better images of objects that are usually transparent, mostly those whose main component is water.

The high-speed photography system includes lossless encoding compressed ultrafast technology. With this, the system takes a shot in which all the motion that occurs during the time the shot takes to finish is captured.

Usually, devices that support ultra-fast video imaging, take an entire series of photos one after the other where events get repeated.

However, the lossless encoding compressed ultrafast technology doesn't have this drawback because the image is taken in a single shot and not a number of shots. So it is capable of capturing motion, like that of movement of light, which cannot be captured by an ordinary camera that supports ultra-fast imaging.