Atreyie Ghosh (left) and Sarah King look at samples being transferred into an ultrahigh vacuum chamber for investigation with a time-resolved photoemission electron microscope. Credit: Jason Smith To capture a crisp image of a hummingbird in flight, which can flap its wings up to 200 times per second, a photographer needs a camera with an extremely fast shutter speed. But what if your target is smaller than a single chromosome and can travel at velocities approaching lightspeed? Conventional cameras, no matter how advanced, are limited by the nature of light. You would need a special device and an innovative method to film such a tiny, speedy subject. In a study published in Nature Communications , UChicago chemists designed just such an ultrafast "camera." They used it to capture polaritons—quasiparticles made of both light and matter—moving through a special crystal that can steer their direction.…