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The rapatronic camera is a high-speed camera capable of recording a still image with an exposure time as short as 10 nanoseconds. To bypass the mechanical shutter speed constraint of a normal camera, the rapatronic camera employs two polarising filters and a Faraday cell (or in some variants a Kerr cell).
The two filters are positioned with their polarisation angles at 90° to each other to block all incoming light. The Faraday cell sits between the filters and alters the polarisation plane of light travelling through it depending on the strength of magnetic field provided, acting as a shutter when powered at the right time for a very brief period of time, allowing the film to be properly exposed.
The Global Rapatronic camera Market accounted for $XX Billion in 2022 and is anticipated to reach $XX Billion by 2030, registering a CAGR of XX% from 2024 to 2030.
Edgerton designed the rapatronic camera, a device capable of recording photographs in the split second after a nuclear explosion. With an exposure time of as small as ten nanoseconds, these single-use cameras were able to take a photo one ten-millionth of a second after detonation from nearly seven miles away.
A typical fireball had already reached about 100 feet in diameter, with temperatures three times higher than the sun’s surface. Edgerton was a high-speed photography pioneer who received a bronze medal from the Royal Photographic Society for their work in strobe photography.
Nuclear weapons experts had some difficulties studying the growth of nuclear fireballs in test detonations during the early days of atomic bomb research. After the first several seconds of the explosion, even the greatest cameras of the time were unable to record anything more than a fuzzy, over-exposed frame.
A typical nuclear test site configuration required a series of ten or so rapatronic cameras, because each could only take one shot—no mechanical film advance system was fast enough to allow for a second photograph. The shutter mechanism was another mechanical constraint that had to be overcome.
Because mechanical shutters were incapable of moving swiftly enough to catch the instant one ten-millionth of a second after explosion, Edgerton’s clever cameras used a novel non-mechanical shutter that made use of light polarisation.
