Ultrafast Camera Captures Light For The First Time

A new technology was able to capture "sonic booms" of light -- a feat achieved by scientists for the first time. The same technology could allow them to image live activity in the brain.

The Seeker noted that like aircraft flying at supersonic speeds, these sonic books have pulses of light that can leave behind cone-shaped wakes. A superfast camera was able to capture videos of such events for the first time, thanks to a new technology that one day could allow scientists to help watch neurons fire and keep images of brain activity.

As noted, objects that move through air propels away the air that is in front of it, creating pressure waves that move at the speed of sound and in all directions.

Sonic booms are said to be confined to conical regions known as "Mach cones" and are said to extend primarily to the back of supersonic objects. To explain this better, think of the pressure waves from boats that generate as the boat pushes water out of the way, making waves move across the water. Previous research also indicated that lights can generate such conical waves similar to sonic booms.

The technology was developed by a researcher at Washington University by designing a narrow tunnel filled with fog from dry ice. According to India Today, the tunnel was sandwiched between plates made of a mixture of silicone rubber and aluminum oxide powder. They fired pulses of green laser light that only lasted trillionths of a second each. The pulses scatter off the specks of dry ice within the tunnel, thus generating light waves that were able to enter surrounding plates. The green light that traveled inside the tunnel was noted to have traveled faster than they did in the plates. The laser pulse left a cone of slower-moving, overlapping light waves behind it.

Author Jinyang Liang, and optical engineer and lead of the study, said, "Our camera is fast enough to watch neurons fire and image live traffic in the brain. We hope we can use our system to study neural networks to understand how the brain works."