Belfast researchers have developed a new kind of camera that can take pictures of atoms or capture starlight from the far side of the universe, writes Dick Ahlstrom
It is a special kind of camera that is just as effective taking images of objects 10 millionths of a metre across or 500 light years across. Yet such a camera exists, invented by a Belfast company that grew out of advanced physics research.
Andor Technology Ltd was set up in 1989 as a "spin-out" commercialisation from Queen's University's department of physics, says the firm's managing director, Dr Hugh Cormican. "There is a long history in the department of developing diagnostic equipment," he says.
He and company colleagues Dr Mike Pringle and Dr Donal Denvir had been working on diagnostic tools for measuring aspects of their advanced laser research. They needed a method for "seeing" the laser strike a surface but had no tool for achieving this. "We were developing diagnostics that could capture spectra over very short periods to time," he says. They developed a device to do this, a very sensitive imaging device called an electron multiplying charge coupled device (EMCCD), that because of its sensitivity was also very fast at capturing an image.
They knew immediately that the new device had good commercial potential and a Queen's campus company was set up to exploit the technology. This grew over the years and eventually moved off campus. It now employs 110 people and has a turnover of about $15 million a year, with 95 per cent of its products destined for export, says Cormican.
The EMCCD technology "basically makes the camera more sensitive", he says. It is sensitive enough to respond to a single photon of light. "The light falls on a sensor, the sensor generates an electronic signal." This in turn is amplified with an electric voltage to boost the signal beyond the level of background noise.
The resultant sensitivity means that it can capture images at extremely low light levels and can get well-lit images very quickly. For this reason it is adept at taking weak light signals in astrophysics but also when looking at very small objects in the nano range down to 10 millionths of a metre across.
"A lot of nanotechnology research is being done with these high-end cameras," he says. "It is the world's most sensitive camera." Its sensitivity means you don't have to depend on very long exposures to get an image. "The advantage of this technology is you don't have to wait," he says.
One important new use will be to watch proteins and DNA in action, he says, or to watch biochemical processes inside a living cell by filming them at 120 to 450 frames per second. "One of the future ways of sequencing genes is to have markers for the different bases and you then watch how it is being replicated" using the camera, he believes. It can capture "living cell processes" as they take place in living tissues.
Light sensitivity is also valuable in astrophysics, and Cormican referred to work at University College Cork that makes use of the camera. A team there is studying quasars, which deliver powerful radio frequency emissions as they spin at rates measured in milliseconds.
Every few revolutions the radio emissions can flare for as yet unknown reasons and the Cork group wanted a way to see whether there is a matching change in the light intensity during these radio peaks. The EMCCD camera should allow them to see if indeed there is a matching change, something that could help towards a better understanding of these unusual objects, says Cormican. "They are dear but they are worth it," he says of the devices which can run from $30,000 to $100,000 depending on ancillary equipment.
Surprisingly, Cormician knew as a teenager that he would one day become a technology entrepreneur. He recollected as a 16-year-old coming from the North to attend an Irish Youth Science Week at the Royal Dublin Society. "One of the things that really stuck in my mind was descriptions of the Irish strategy for developing inward investment," he says.
"I went home and told all my friends that I was going to found a high-tech company. It was an Irish Youth Science Week that inspired me."