Development and Performance of Bechtel Nevada's Nine-Frame Camera System

摘要

Bechtel Nevada, Los Alamos Operations, has developed a high-speed, nine-frame camera system that records a sequence from a changing or dynamic scene. The system incorporates an electrostatic image tube with custom gating and deflection electrodes. The framing tube is shuttered with high-speed gating electronics, yielding frame rates of up to 5MHz. Dynamic scenes are lens-coupled to the camera, which contains a single photocathode gated on and off to control each exposure time. Deflection plates and drive electronics move the frames to different locations on the framing tube output. A single charge-coupled device (CCD) camera then records the phosphor image of all nine frames. This paper discusses setup techniques to optimize system performance. It examines two alternate philosophies for system configuration and respective performance results. We also present performance metrics for system evaluation, experimental results, and applications to four-frame cameras.