Ultra-high-speed camera used in investigation of transient plasma phenomena

The Specialised Imaging SIMD32 is a state-of-the-art double-shot multichannel framing camera capable of capturing up to 32 images without creating shading or parallax at up to 1 billion frames per second.

Simon Bland, Professor of Plasma Physics at Imperial College said: “The camera will be used to capture events such as high-pressure shockwave effects, plasma jets, Z-pinches, and extreme states of matter to help develop our understanding of fusion energy generation. For these types of applications – the SIMD32 is the only camera capable of taking enough images at the speeds we need, which is typically hundreds of millions of frames/second.” He added: “The high-performance level of the SIMD32 will also allow my research team to explore the use of the camera at neighbouring ESRF and EuXFEL facilities to capture ultra-fast x-ray radiographs of these challenging transient events.”

“Within an hour of delivery, the camera was set up by me and the Sales Director from Specialised Imaging, capturing images of an 80kV electrical arc in air at 100M frames/second. After some adjustment, the camera captured at 333M frames/second and showed the propagation of plasma streamer between the electrodes, which, when measured using the camera’s software calibration and measurement function, was travelling at approximately 280km/s.”

The highly accurate timing and fully flexible intensified CCD sensors at the heart of the SIMD32 multichannel framing camera provide almost infinite control over interframe time, gain and exposure to capture even the most difficult ultra-fast phenomena. Comprehensive triggering adjustment and a wide range of output signals are controlled using camera’s comprehensive software suite which includes advanced measurement and image enhancement capabilities.