Search

This article proposes a new technique to reduce the readout noise in charge-coupled devices (CCDs). The objective is to minimize the common noise between the channels. This noise is either induced by the readout electronics or by the environment, and it could be present in small (single CCD and a few channels) or large systems (dozens of CCDs and hundreds of channels). By interleaving the video signals, we show that it is possible to reduce the readout noise by around 50% without sacrificing output channels at the expense of a moderate increase of the readout time, which is less compared with other techniques. Up until now, similar approaches have used half of the output stages only for noise measurement doubling the total readout time of the sensor. Simulations and experimental results are presented to validate the proposed approach. Moreover, the technique is measured using a Skipper CCD, and its operation is validated together with the ability of the Skipper sensor for nondestructively reading, several times, the same pixel charge. With the combination of both techniques, we achieve deep subelectron readout noise levels (0.1 e−).

This article provides a practical design methodology to calculate an optimal filter for noise reduction in the readout of charge‐coupled devices (CCDs) taking into account the charge transfer and feedthroughs due to capacitive coupling in the CCD. A detailed analysis of the dynamics of the video signal and charge transfer is presented, including the circuital modeling of the output stage of the CCD and the dynamics of the electronics in the video chain before the analog‐to‐digital (AD) converter. This model is used to compute an optimal filter that minimizes the variance of the pixel noise and uses the samples of the charge transfer, before the charge is fully settled. This is necessary to enhance the performance of previous results that also use optimal filters but do not use the transition samples, while also reducing the pixel readout time, resulting in faster readouts. As a proof of concept for the optimal filter, we present novel experimental results using a Skipper CCD, which has a floating sense node that allows to measure the charge packet an arbitrary number of times. However, this technique can be applied to any CCD that has a readout system that digitally samples the video signal. Fil: Chierchie, Fernando. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Eléctrica "Alfredo Desages". Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica y de Computadoras. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Eléctrica "Alfredo Desages"; Argentina Fil: Fernández Moroni, Guillermo. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Estados Unidos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Eléctrica "Alfredo Desages". Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica y de Computadoras. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Eléctrica "Alfredo Desages"; Argentina Fil: Querejeta Simbeni, Pedro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Eléctrica "Alfredo Desages". Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica y de Computadoras. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Eléctrica "Alfredo Desages"; Argentina Fil: Stefanazzi, Leandro. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Estados Unidos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Eléctrica "Alfredo Desages". Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica y de Computadoras. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Eléctrica "Alfredo Desages"; Argentina Fil: Paolini, Eduardo Emilio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Eléctrica "Alfredo Desages". Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica y de Computadoras. Instituto de Investigaciones en Ingeniería Eléctrica "Alfredo Desages"; Argentina. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas; Argentina Fil: Sofo Haro, Miguel Francisco. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Área de Energía Nuclear. Instituto Balseiro; Argentina. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Estados Unidos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina Fil: Cancelo, Gustavo Indalecio. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Estados Unidos Fil: Estrada, Juan. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Estados Unidos

This work presents the design of a new optimal filter to reduce the readout noise of CCD sensors. This new filter uses the information from the transfer function of the video signal. Moreover, it incorporates the noise autocorrelation matrix to reduce the effect of weakly stationary noise sources, like the time jitter in sampling. The filter was tested through simulations and compared to the standard CCD reading method known as Double Correlated Sampling (CDS for Correlated Double Sampling), giving better results.

The Skipper-CCDs, a special type of charge-coupled device (CCD) sensor that features sub-electron readout noise levels, was proposed decades ago. However, only in recent years it has been possible to develop large size Skipper-CCDs ensuring stable operation. Their extreme low noise operation makes them suitable for experiments that require low thresholds and high energy resolution, such as dark matter and neutrino interactions detection, and more recently quantum-imaging and astronomy. New experiments are planning to use kilograms of active silicon from Skipper-CCDs as sensitive mass. In this way, they can achieve extremely low detection thresholds and a high probability of particle interaction. However, this approach needs arrays of thousands of Skipper- CCDs operating at the same time imposing challenging requirements. Also, introduction of this technology in astronomy and quantum-imaging applications requires a large number of channels per sensor to speed up the readout. The front-end needs to be redesigned from scratch: it must achieve low noise performance, be simple for easy integration and allow the routing of thousands of channels out of the sensors with minimal connections. This paper presents a detailed analysis of options for the front-end electronics and their noise performance. It describes a novel way of using a dual-slope integrator with minimal components to pile up the charge of consecutive readouts of the same pixel in a concept that we call a multi-slope integrator. This reduces drastically the output bandwidth, simplifying the wiring and the warm electronics. These proposals will allow the generation of new scientific instruments based on Skippers-CCD arrays.

This article provides insight into the effects of jitter induced noise in the pixel value when digital readout techniques are used for charge coupled devices (CCD). Available publications only focus in the CCD electronic noise component while this work analyzes the impact of jitter for readout schemes in which samples near and within the transition of the video signal between the pedestal level and charge level are used. This is the case when fast read outs are required or when optimal filtering techniques are used. The fast voltage swing of the video signal due to feed-through of the clocks in the aforementioned transition amplifies any timing error in the ADC sampling.

This article provides a design methodology to calculate an optimal filter for noise reduction in the readout of charge-coupled devices (CCDs) taking into account the charge transfer and feed-through due to capacitive coupling in the CCD. A detailed analysis of the dynamics in the video signal and charge transfer is presented. This includes the circuital modeling of the output stage of the CCD and the dynamics of the electronics in the video chain before the AD converter. The model is used to compute an optimal filter that minimizes the variance of the pixel noise and uses the samples of the charge transfer, before the charge is fully settled. This allows to shorten the pixel-time resulting in fastest readouts. The paper shows novel results of this processing in particular for Skipper CCD which uses a floating sense node to measure the charge packet.

In this paper the design of an optimal filter for noise reduction in the readout of a charge coupled device (CCD) with applications in particle detection is presented. The proposed approach uses measured data of the noise at the output amplifier of the CCD to obtain the coefficients of a filter that minimizes the pixel variance. The preliminary results show that this approach outperforms the standard dual slope integrator reading technique.

Fully depleted thick CCDs have been designed for infrared astronomy, but their low read-out noise of the order of a 2 e− and their considerable mass of a 5.2g, allows novel uses for them in low energy threshold particle detection applications, such as the CONNIE and DAMIC experiments. For both experiments, a reduction of the CCD read-out noise is will produce an increase in the detection efficiency. Few works have demonstrated that is possible reduce the noise applying digital processing techniques, and it is a field that must be explored. In this work the design of a CCD digital acquisition system will be presented. The impact of key parameters as quantization noise, front-end gain and ADC noise will be analyzed. A prototype of the front-end electronics was successfully tested with a CCD exposed to X-rays, achieving 2.3e− of readout noise.

Thick Charge Couple Devices have proven to be interesting particle detectors. The DAMIC and CONNIE collaborations are using this technology to search for the elastic scattering of a dark matter particle or a neutrino with a silicon nucleus, producing a nuclear recoil. The experiments reach unprecedented sensitivity at low energies (below 100 eV) by taking advantage of the low readout noise achieved by these devices. The present document describes an experimental setup at the Centra Atomico Bariloche, its noise treatment and its calibration.

In this article a stochastic model for point events expected in the output image of scientific CCDs is derived. This kind of events are typical in CCD systems dedicated to particle detection, such as DAMIC and CONNIE. The model includes the randomness of the charge movement in the silicon and the noise at the readout stage providing the base for an optimal detection technique.