MARCH 14--A simultaneous framing and streak system is now available that incorporates two high-performance imaging systems, the SIM-8 Ultra Fast Framing camera from Specialised Imaging (Tring, UK; www.specialised-imaging.com ) and the SC Optoscope Streak Camera from Optronis (Kehl, Germany; www.optronis.com). Recording simultaneous ultrafast 2-D and time-resolved images is of significant interest to scientists in a growing number of fields of study including detonics and electrical-discharge research. Traditionally, such measurements have been accomplished by the use of two independent imaging systems looking at the event at slightly different angles of view or through external imaging beamsplitting optical configurations that can limit light-collecting efficiency.
More recently, cameras with built-in imaging beamsplitters allowed for streak tubes and their electronics to be fitted into the same camera body as the framing electronics. These systems limited the versatility, primarily of the streak functions, as the designs necessitated that they use small streak tubes with small photocathodes and output screens and had closed fixed-relay optics between the objective lens and the slit input to the streak tube.
Incorporating a supplementary optical port that uses a beamsplitter to deliver 50% of the primary image to an image plane, the SIM-8 framing camera allows secondary instruments such as streak cameras, high-speed video, or time-resolved spectrometers to share the same optical axis as the framing channels. Using this innovative supplementary optical port facility the SIM-8 was integrated with an Optronis SC Optoscope streak camera to give a true no-compromise simultaneous framing-and-streak-camera system.
Benefiting from the SIM-8 f/2.8 imaging beamsplitting optics, the simultaneous framing and streak imaging system can deliver a distortion-free image of the primary image to eight separate output ports, where ICCDs capture eight individual frames of the event at framing rates up to 2 billion frames/s and exposures as short as 500 ps. Using the SC Optoscope streak camera fitted with the Slow Streak electronics unit, the new imaging system can give streak speeds from 330 ps/mm to 5 ms/mm.
An applications report describing the use and advantages of the simultaneous framing and streak camera system in short-arc-discharge studies is available on request from
Specialised Imaging via e-mail: [email protected].
