Charge coupled devices (CCDs) in X-ray astronomy

Lumb, D.; Berthiaume, Gregory D.; Burrows, D. N.; Garmire, G. P.; Nousek, J. A.

doi:10.1007/bf00566685

Cited by 38 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…16 A CCD's charge transfer efficiency (CTE) degrades over time as the detector is exposed to damaging alpha particle and proton radiation. 17,18 The direct readout of each pixel on an HCD reduces this problem as the charge is only transferred through the absorber thickness (∼100 µm) rather than across centimeters of the detector surface. This decrease in charge transfer distance makes HCDs much more radiation hard than CCDs (>100 krads).…”

Section: Hybrid Cmos Detectorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Speedster-EXD: a new event-driven hybrid CMOS x-ray detector

Griffith

Falcone

Prieskorn

et al. 2016

J. Astron. Telesc. Instrum. Syst

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The Speedster-EXD is a new 64x64 pixel, 40 µm pixel pitch, 100 µm depletion depth hybrid CMOS X-ray detector (HCD) with the capability of reading out only those pixels containing event charge, thus enabling fast effective frame rates. A global charge threshold can be specified, and pixels containing charge above this threshold are flagged and read out. The Speedster detector has also been designed with other advanced in-pixel features to improve performance, including a low-noise, high-gain CTIA amplifier that eliminates interpixel capacitance crosstalk (IPC), and in-pixel Correlated Double Sampling (CDS) subtraction to reduce reset noise. We measure the best energy resolution on the Speedster-EXD detector to be 206 eV (3.5 %) at 5.89 keV and 172 eV (10.0 %) at 1.49 keV. The average IPC to the four adjacent pixels is measured to be 0.25 ± 0.2 % (i.e. consistent with zero). The pixel-to-pixel gain variation is measured to be 0.80 ± 0.03 %, and a Monte Carlo simulation is applied to better characterize the contributions to the energy resolution.

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Section: Hybrid Cmos Detectorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Speedster-EXD: a new event-driven hybrid CMOS x-ray detector

Griffith

Falcone

Prieskorn

et al. 2016

J. Astron. Telesc. Instrum. Syst

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“…Just to cite a few examples, the first photon-counting CCD x-ray camera was launched from Woomera, Australia to observe supernova 1987A, while subsequently a new CCD detector was developed to take spectrally resolved images of the Puppis-A supernova remnant. 3,4 In recent years, two extremely important x-ray observatories have been sent into the space, CHANDRA ͑1999͒ and XMM ͑1999͒, both having CCD based detectors. [5][6][7] In conclusion high performing detectors soft x-ray imaging, in photon counting with energy resolution, based on CCD devices was developed for astrophysics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Energy resolved two-dimensional soft x-ray radiography with a micropattern gas detector

Pacella

Bellazzini

Finkenthal

2006

Review of Scientific Instruments

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This article discusses the use of energy resolved two-dimensional soft x-ray imaging (ERXI), in the range of 2–8keV, to study and investigate composition and depth of different materials. This technique represents a new approach in which imaging is merged with multienergy analysis, performed with spectral scans in 25 energy subintervals. The detector used is a micropattern gas detector with gas electron multiplier as amplifying structure, pixel readout board with 144pixels (12×12), and electronics for photon counting for each pixel. As the detector works in a proportional regime, images in adjustable energy windows (independently for each pixel) can be acquired. Energy resolution enhances the contrast and the imaging capability providing more information of the transparencies of the materials under investigations. Contact radiographies have been made with samples of four different materials: CaCl, organic fat matter, aluminum, and thin plastic tape. The resulting data transparency curves for these materials have been derived. These curves demonstrate the value of ERXI at high performances (high efficiency, high dynamics, and high contrast), potentially relevant for many future applications.

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“…As a practical limitation, both Ge and Si photon detectors must be cooled in order to reduce the thermal charge carrier generation (and associated noise) to an acceptable level. Nevertheless, and particularly for space-borne observatories, silicon CCDs (charge coupled devices) have revolutionized imaging spectroscopy at energies <10 keV despite their modest photon stopping power [1].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%