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Fastest-Ever Flashgun Captures Image of Light Wave
loconet writes to tell us that a team of researchers have created the shortest-ever flash of light. Weighing in at just 80 attoseconds, this flash has already been used to capture an image of a laser pulse and could possibly be used in the future to capture the electron movement around large atoms.
Ok, first you have this coherent photon beam. This means that they are all traveling at the same direction. So how do you take a picture of THAT?
In a different way that a standard photograph.
You are bombarding the photon beam with photons,
No, you aren't. That doesn't make sense.
What they do is have the laser pulse travel through something they call a "chirped mirror". This packs the photos from the laser pulse into a smaller space. This then travels through a neon cloud, which then creates a flash of light. This flash of light is the "shortest-ever flash of light".
To photograph this flash of light, they direct it into a second neon cloud, which ionizes atoms, releasing electrons. Those electrons are then recorded. Multiple flashes were required to produce enough electrons to build up the image shown in the article, so what you really have is an image of many flashes overlaid.
Consider a 35mm film camera with a mechanical shutter... what degree of force and mechanism would be required to move that shutter to open AND close the height of 24mm in 80 attoseconds? IANAPhysicist, but I doubt human hands could hang on to it.
Apparently we're not realizing just how short 80 attoseconds is. You doubt human hands could hang on to it? Moving 24mm in 80 attoseconds is faster than the speed of light. Not only is it faster than the speed of light, it's a million times faster than the speed of light.
Light only travels 24 nanometers in 80 attoseconds.
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