Astronomical performance of a micro-channel plate intensified photon counting detector

Fordham, J. L. A.; Bone, D. A.; Read, P. D.; Norton, Timothy; Charles, P. A.; Carter, D.; Cannon, R. D.; Pickles, Andrew

doi:10.1093/mnras/237.3.513

Cited by 19 publications

(13 citation statements)

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“…Each of the XMM‐OM detectors consists of a photon‐counting microchannel plate (MCP) intensified charge coupled device (CCD; Fordham et al ). Incident photons eject electrons from a multi‐alkali (S20) photocathode, optimized to UV and blue wavelengths, which are amplified by a factor of 10 6 in number using MCPs in series.…”

Section: Instrumentation and Data Samplementioning

confidence: 99%

TheXMM-Newtonserendipitous ultraviolet source survey catalogue

Page

Brindle

Talavera

et al. 2012

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

106

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The XMM-Newton Serendipitous Ultraviolet Source Survey (XMM-SUSS) is a catalogue of ultraviolet (UV) sources detected serendipitously by the Optical Monitor (XMM-OM) on board the XMM-Newton observatory. The catalogue contains UV-detected sources collected from 2417 XMM-OM observations in one to six broad-band UV and optical filters, made between 2000 February 24 and 2007 March 29. The primary contents of the catalogue are source positions, magnitudes and fluxes in one to six passbands, and these are accompanied by profile diagnostics and variability statistics. XMM-SUSS is populated by 753 578 UV source detections above a 3σ signal-to-noise ratio threshold limit which relate to 624 049 unique objects. Taking account of substantial overlaps between observations, the net sky area covered is 29-54 deg 2 , depending on UV filter. The magnitude distributions peak at m AB = 20.2, 20.9 and 21.2 in UVW2 (λ eff = 2120 Å), UVM2 (λ eff = 2310 Å) and UVW1 (λ eff = 2910 Å), respectively. More than 10 per cent of the sources have been visited more than once using the same filter during XMM-Newton operation, and >20 per cent of sources are observed more than once per filter during an individual visit. Consequently, the scope for science based on temporal source variability on time-scales of hours to years is broad. By comparison with other astrophysical catalogues we test the accuracy of the source measurements and define the nature of the serendipitous UV XMM-OM source sample. The distributions of source colours in the UV and optical filters are shown together with the expected loci of stars and galaxies, and indicate that sources which are detected in multiple UV bands are predominantly star-forming galaxies and stars of type G or earlier.

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Section: Instrumentation and Data Samplementioning

confidence: 99%

TheXMM-Newtonserendipitous ultraviolet source survey catalogue

Page

Brindle

Talavera

et al. 2012

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

106

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“…, a camera). In astronomy, photon counting imaging technology was originally introduced due to its sensitivity, and continues to be used on both ground- and space-based observatories, particularly in the UV [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]. Other advantages of photon counting imaging include linearity, high dynamic range, high sensitivity, zero read-out noise and well-defined Poisson statistics, and photon counting imaging is now finding applications in diverse fields of science, such as fluorescence spectroscopy and microscopy, LIDAR, optical tomography and quantum cryptography, as reviewed recently [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Photon Counting Imaging with an Electron-Bombarded Pixel Image Sensor

Hirvonen

Suhling

2016

Sensors

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Electron-bombarded pixel image sensors, where a single photoelectron is accelerated directly into a CCD or CMOS sensor, allow wide-field imaging at extremely low light levels as they are sensitive enough to detect single photons. This technology allows the detection of up to hundreds or thousands of photon events per frame, depending on the sensor size, and photon event centroiding can be employed to recover resolution lost in the detection process. Unlike photon events from electron-multiplying sensors, the photon events from electron-bombarded sensors have a narrow, acceleration-voltage-dependent pulse height distribution. Thus a gain voltage sweep during exposure in an electron-bombarded sensor could allow photon arrival time determination from the pulse height with sub-frame exposure time resolution. We give a brief overview of our work with electron-bombarded pixel image sensor technology and recent developments in this field for single photon counting imaging, and examples of some applications.

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“…Moreover, by tuning the voltage amplitude of MCP, the signal amplification factor (gain) can be varied to adapt for the light sources of different brightness. Since the late 1970s, when the first ICCD cameras were developed, the family of ICCD cameras has been widely implemented in astronomy and space research [2][3][4][5], chemistry, biology, and medicine [6]. Nowadays, ICCD cameras are more and more often used in quantum optics [7][8][9][10][11][12][13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Autonomous absolute calibration of an ICCD camera in single-photon detection regime

Luo¹,

Just²,

Leuchs³

et al. 2016

Opt. Express

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Intensified charge coupled device (ICCD) cameras are widely used in various applications such as microscopy, astronomy, spectroscopy. Often they are used as single-photon detectors, with thresholding being an essential part of the readout. In this paper, we measure the quantum efficiency of an ICCD camera in the single-photon detection mode using the Klyshko absolute calibration technique. The quantum efficiency is obtained as a function of the threshold value and of the wavelength of the detected light. In addition, we study the homogeneity of the photon sensitivity over the camera chip area. The experiment is performed in the autonomous regime, without using any additional detectors. We therefore demonstrate the self-calibration of an ICCD camera.

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Astronomical performance of a micro-channel plate intensified photon counting detector

Cited by 19 publications

References 0 publications

TheXMM-Newtonserendipitous ultraviolet source survey catalogue

TheXMM-Newtonserendipitous ultraviolet source survey catalogue

Photon Counting Imaging with an Electron-Bombarded Pixel Image Sensor

Autonomous absolute calibration of an ICCD camera in single-photon detection regime

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