An experimental setup is proposed for the precise measurement of the quantum states of ultracold neutrons bound in the earth's gravitational field. The experiment utilizes a CCD-based pixel sensor and magnification system to observe the fine structure of the neutron distribution. In this work, we analyzed the sensor's deposited energy measurement capability and found that its spatial resolution was 5.3 um. A magnifying power of two orders of magnitude was realized by using a cylindrical rod as a convex mirror.
Direct measurement of sub-pixel structure of the EPIC MOS CCD on-board th e XMM/NEWTON satellite
我们已经使用了网格实验，以测量XMM/牛顿卫星上的EPIC MOS CCD的亚像素结构。EPIC MOS CCD具有40个$μ$平方米像素，其具有开放电极结构，以提高对低能X射线的检测效率。我们获得了各种X射线事件等级的恢复像素图像（例如，分裂像素事件，单像素事件等）。不同的X射线能量。我们证实，开放电极结构的结果在一个扭曲的水平像素边界。开放电极区域生成单个像素事件和垂直分裂事件两者，但不生成水平分裂事件。由于单像素事件通常表现出最好的能量分辨率，我们讨论了一种方法，增加的比例，单像素事件从开放电极区域。此外，我们已经直接测量的电极和死层的厚度，通过比较光谱从开放的电极区域与那些从其他区域：电极，电极指和通道停止。可以说，EPIC MOS CCD比钱德拉X射线天文台ACIS的前照式芯片更抗辐射，因为它们在电荷传输通道上方有额外的吸收厚度。计算了EPIC MOS CCD的平均像元响应，发现我们的估计与EPIC MOS CCD的地面标定结果吻合较好。
The Skipper CCD-in-CMOS Parallel Read-Out Circuit (SPROCKET) is a mixed-signal front-end design for the readout of Skipper CCD-in-CMOS image sensors. SPROCKET is fabricated in a 65 nm CMOS process and each pixel occupies a 50$μ$m $\times$ 50$μ$m footprint. SPROCKET is intended to be heterogeneously integrated with a Skipper-in-CMOS sensor array, such that one readout pixel is connected to a multiplexed array of nine Skipper-in-CMOS pixels to enable massively parallel readout. The front-end includes a variable gain preamplifier, a correlated double sampling circuit, and a 10-bit serial successi…
We characterize the astrometric distortion at the edges of thick, fully-depleted CCDs in the lab using a bench-top simulation of LSST observing. By illuminating an array of forty thousand pinholes (30mu m diameter) at the object plane of a f/1.2 optical reimager, thousands of PSFs can be imaged over a 4Kx4K pixel CCD. Each high purity silicon pixel, 10mu m square by 100mu m deep, can then be individually characterized through a series of sub-pixel dithers in the X/Y plane. The unique character [response, position, shape] of each pixel as a function of flux, wavelength, back side bias, etc. can…
The development of the Skipper Charge Coupled Devices (Skipper-CCDs) has been a major technological breakthrough for sensing very weak ionizing particles. The sensor allows to reach the ultimate sensitivity of silicon material as a charge signal sensor by unambiguous determination of the charge signal collected by each cell or pixel, even for single electron-hole pair ionization. Extensive use of the technology was limited by the lack of specific equipment to operate the sensor at the ultimate performance. In this work a simple, single-board Skipper-CCD controller is presented, aimed for the o…
The skipper CCD is a special type of charge coupled device in which the readout noise can be reduced to sub-electron levels by averaging independent measurements of the same charge. Thus the charge in the pixels can be determined by counting the exact number of electrons. The total readout time is proportional to the number of measurements of the charge in each pixel. For some applications this time may be too long; however, researchers usually are interested only on certain region within the matrix of pixels. In this paper we present the development of a smart skipper readout technique that a…
We have developed a non-destructive readout system that uses a floating-gate amplifier on a thick, fully depleted charge coupled device (CCD) to achieve ultra-low readout noise of 0.068 e- rms/pix. This is the first time that discrete sub-electron readout noise has been achieved reproducibly over millions of pixels on a stable, large-area detector. This allows the precise counting of the number of electrons in each pixel, ranging from pixels with 0 electrons to more than 1500 electrons. The resulting CCD detector is thus an ultra-sensitive calorimeter. It is also capable of counting single pho…
With Skipper-CCD detectors it is possible to take multiple samples of the charge packet collected on each pixel. After averaging the samples, the noise can be extremely reduced allowing the exact counting of electrons per pixel. In this work we present an analog circuit that, with a minimum number of components, applies a double slope integration (DSI), and at the same time, it averages the multiple samples producing at its output the pixel value with sub-electron noise. For this prupose, we introduce the technique of using the DSI integrator capacitor to add the skipper samples. An experiment…
We have discovered an anomalous behavior of CCD readout electronics that affects their use in many astronomical applications. An offset in the digitization of the CCD output voltage that depends on the binary encoding of one pixel is added to pixels that are read out one, two and/or three pixels later. One result of this effect is the introduction of a differential offset in the background when comparing regions with and without flux from science targets. Conventional data reduction methods do not correct for this offset. We find this effect in 16 of 22 instruments investigated, covering a var…
In Charge Coupled Device (CCD) detectors the electrons excited upon absorption of a single x-ray photon quickly diffuse and generate charge-spots often larger than pixel dimensions. In the soft x-ray range this phenomenon drastically limits the effective spatial resolution to approximately 25μm, irrespective of the pixel size. For very low fluence the charge-cloud centroid determination can be used, on each individual spot, to estimate the actual photon impact position with sub-pixel precision. The readout noise and speed, together with the charge and spatial undersampling, are the main factor…
In this work, we will present a physical model and measurements of the transport of small charge packets in the bulk of thick high resistivity CCD before being collected by the pixel potential wells. A new technique to measure the lateral spread of the charge as a function of the ionization depth in the bulk is presented. Results from measurements on CCD currently in use for several scientific instruments are shown and validated with a new mathematical algorithm to extend the current modeling based only on the diffusion of the charge in silicon.
Output-Stage Design Optimization for High-Sensitivity SiSeRO CCDs and SiSeRO Active Pixel Sensors
Kavli Institute of Astrophysics and Cosmology, Stanford University（斯坦福大学天体物理与宇宙学 Kavli 研究所）；MIT Lincoln Laboratory（麻省理工学院林肯实验室）；Department of Physics, Stanford University（斯坦福大学物理系）；SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory（SLAC国家加速器实验室）；Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工学院天体物理与空间研究 Kavli 研究所）
The Fine Pixel CCD (FPCCD) is one of the candidate sensor technologies for the ILC vertex detector. The vertex detector is located near the interaction point, thus high radiation tolerance is required. Charge transfer efficiency of CCD is degraded by radiation damage which makes traps in pixels. We measured charge transfer inefficiency (CTI) of a neutron irradiated FPCCD prototype. We observed a degradation of CTI compared with non-irradiated CCD. To improve the CTI of irradiated CCD, we performed the fat-zero charge injection to fill the traps. In this paper, we report a status of CTI improve…
We introduce the concept of Gamma Polari-Calorimetry (GPC) dedicated for proposals at Extreme Light Infrastructure in the Romanian site (ELI-NP). A simulation study shows that an assembly of thin SOI pixel sensors can satisfy our requirements to GPC.
We propose the use of germanium-on-silicon technology for indirect time-of-flight based three-dimensional sensing, and demonstrate a novel lock-in pixel featuring high quantum efficiency and large frequency bandwidth. Compared to silicon pixels, germanium-on-silicon pixels simultaneously maintain a high quantum efficiency and a high demodulation contrast deep into GHz frequency regime, which enable consistently superior depth accuracy in both indoor and outdoor scenarios. Physical model, numerical simulation, device fabrication and characterization, system performance comparison, and laser saf…
Imaging in a broad light-intensity regime with a high signal-to-noise ratio is a key capability in fields as diverse as Quantum Metrology and Astronomy. Achieving high signal-to-noise ratios in quantum imaging leads to surpassing the classical limit in parameter estimation. In astronomical detection, the search for habitable exoplanets demands imaging in the infrared its atmospheres looking for biosignatures. These optical applications are hampered by detection noise, which critically limits their potential, and thus demands photon-number and spatial resolution detectors. Here we report an ima…
Stanford University（斯坦福大学）；SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory（SLAC国家加速器实验室）
Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers (LArTPCs) are high resolution particle imaging detectors, employed by accelerator-based neutrino oscillation experiments for high precision physics measurements. While images of particle trajectories are intuitive to analyze for physicists, the development of a high quality, automated data reconstruction chain remains challenging. One of the most critical reconstruction steps is particle clustering: the task of grouping 3D image pixels into different particle instances that share the same particle type. In this paper, we propose the first scalable deep lea…
Many future small satellite missions are aimed to provide low-cost remote sensing data at unprecedented revisit rates, with a ground resolution of less than one meter. This requires high resolution, fast and sensitive line-scan imagers operating at low power consumption and ideally featuring spectral sensitivity. In this paper we present comprehensive characterization results of our 7 band Back-Side Illuminated (BSI) CCD-in-CMOS sensor with a pixel pitch of 5.4 um. We have extensively characterized the key performance parameters of our CCD-in-CMOS sensor, such as quantum efficiency (QE), full …
探测伽马射线暴的光学对应物的可能方法之一需要监测天空的大部分区域。近年来，这一想法得到了一些工具性的支持，例如“天空的Pi”项目。"Pi of the Sky"装置的广阔天空覆盖范围来自于使用具有广角镜头（20x20度视场）的相机。这种类型的光学器件引入了点扩散函数（PSF）的显著变形，随着距框架中心的距离而增大。变形的PSF导致数据分析中的额外不确定性。我们的目标是创建一个模型，描述高度变形的PSF在光学天文学，允许图像变形所造成的不确定性，以减少。详细的实验室测量PSF，像素灵敏度，和像素响应函数进行。这些数据用于创建PSF的有效高质量多项式模型。最后，对模型进行了调整，并对实际天空数据进行了应用测试。我们已经开发了一个PSF模型，可以准确地描述我们宽视场实验中非常变形的恒星。该模型适用于任何其他实验与类似的图像变形，其参数的一个简单的调整。应用该模型的天体测量程序的结果在一个显着的改善标准的方法，而基本的测光精度与该模型进行了比较的优化孔径算法的结果。此外，该模型还被用来搜索一个微弱的信号--即一个可能的伽马射线暴光学前兆--显示出非常有希望的结果。PSF函数的精确建模大大提高了天体测量精度，并增强了具有透镜光学的宽视场系统的发现潜力。
In this paper, we have established the couple system of a spectroscope, CCD and computer and proposed a method of the rapid measurement on spectral characteristics such as central wavelengths, relative intensities, sensitivity lines and the wavelength range and image pixel of the spectral images of a material by using the correlation matching method for the image discernment of digital spectra.
