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Nature Physics 5, 316 (1 May 2009) | doi:10.1038/nphys1257

Imaging: Singularly fast

Ed Gerstner

Despite improvements in the performance of cameras based on CCD (charge-coupled device) arrays, the rate at which they can capture multiple images is typically limited to around a thousand frames per second. This makes them incapable of imaging any process that occurs over a timescale shorter than a millisecond, such as the firing of neurons in living tissues or the propagation of shockwaves through a solid.