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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 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. A simple, single-board Skipper-CCD controller designed by the authors is presented and aimed for the operation of the detector in high sensitivity scientific applications. Our article describes the main components and functionality of the so-called low threshold acquisition controller together with experimental results when connected to a Skipper-CCD sensor. Measurements show unprecedented deep subelectron noise of 0.039 erms−/pix by nondestructively measuring the charge 5000 times in each pixel.

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 article the feasibility of using charge coupled devices (CCD) to detect low-energy neutrinos through their coherent scattering with nuclei is analyzed. The detection of neutrinos through this standard model process has been elusive because of the small energy deposited in such interaction. Typical particle detectors have thresholds of a few keV, and most of the energy deposition expected from coherent scattering is well below this level. The CCD detectors discussed in this paper can operate at a threshold of approximately 30 eV, making them ideal for observing this signal. On a CCD array of 500 g located next to a power nuclear reactor the number of coherent scattering events expected is about 3000 events/year. Our results shows that a detection with a confidence level of 99% can be reached within 16 days of continuous operation; with the current 52 g detector prototype this time lapse extends to five months. Fil: Fernández Moroni, Guillermo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Investigación En Ingeniería Eléctrica; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Sur; Argentina. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Estados Unidos Fil: Estrada, Juan. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Estados Unidos Fil: Paolini, Eduardo Emilio. Universidad Nacional del Sur; Argentina. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas; Argentina Fil: Cancelo, Gustavo Indalecio Eugenio. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Estados Unidos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina Fil: Tiffemberg, Javier. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Estados Unidos Fil: Molina, Jorge. Universidad Nacional de Asuncion; Paraguay

We introduce the fully-depleted charge-coupled device (CCD) as a particle detector. We demonstrate its low energy threshold operation, capable of detecting ionizing energy depositions in a single pixel down to 50 eVee. We present results of energy calibrations from 0.3 keVee to 60 keVee, showing that the CCD is a fully active detector with uniform energy response throughout the silicon target, good resolution (Fano ~0.16), and remarkable linear response to electron energy depositions. We show the capability of the CCD to localize the depth of particle interactions within the silicon target. We discuss the mode of operation and unique imaging capabilities of the CCD, and how they may be exploited to characterize and suppress backgrounds. We present the first results from the deployment of 250 um thick CCDs in SNOLAB, a prototype for the upcoming DAMIC100. DAMIC100 will have a target mass of 0.1 kg and should be able to directly test the CDMS-Si signal within a year of operation., 13 pages, 12 figures, proceedings prepared for 13th International Conference on Topics in Astroparticle and Underground Physics (TAUP2013)

Scientific CCDs designed in thick high resistivity silicon (Si) are excellent detectors for astronomy, high energy and nuclear physics, and instrumentation. Many applications can benefit from CCDs ultra low noise readout systems. The present work shows how sub electron noise CCD images can be achieved using digital signal processing techniques. These techniques allow 0. 4 electrons of noise at readout bandwidths of up to 10 Kpixels per second while keeping the full CCD spatial resolution and signal dynamic range. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. (outside the USA). Fil: Cancelo, Gustavo Indalecio Eugenio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Estados Unidos Fil: Estrada, Juan Cruz. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Estados Unidos Fil: Fernández Moroni, Guillermo. 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: Treptow, Ken. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Estados Unidos Fil: Zmuda, Ted. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Estados Unidos Fil: Diehl, H. Thomas. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Estados Unidos

The readout noise for Charge-Coupled Devices (CCDs) has been the main limitation when using these detectors for measuring small amplitude signals. A scientific CCD fabricated on a high-resistivity silicon substrate utilizing a floating gate amplifier with the capability of multiple sampling of the charge signal is described in this paper. The Skipper CCD architecture and its advantages for low noise applications are discussed. A technique for obtaining sub-electron readout noise levels is presented, and its noise and signal characteristics are derived. We demonstrate that with this procedure a very low readout noise of 0.2e − RMS can be achieved. The contribution of other noise sources (output stage, vertical and horizontal charge transfer inefficiency, and dark current noise) are also considered. The optimum number of samples for achieving the total lowest possible noise level is obtained. This technique is applied to an X-rays experiment using a 55Fe source. Fil: Fernández Moroni, Guillermo. 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. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Estados Unidos Fil: Estrada, Juan. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Estados Unidos Fil: Cancelo, Gustavo. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Estados Unidos 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: Diehl, Thomas. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Estados Unidos

Scientific grade CCDs show atractive capabilities for the detection of particles with small energy deposition in matter. Their very low threshold of approximately 40 eV and their good spatial reconstruction of the event are key properties for currently running experiments: CONNIE and DAMIC. Both experiments can benefit from any increase of the detection efficiency of nuclear recoils at low energy. In this work we present two different approaches to increase this efficiency by increasing the SNR of events. The first one is based on the reduction of the readout noise of the device, which is the main contribution of uncertainty to the signal measurement. New studies on the electronic noise from the integrated output amplifier and the readout electronics will be presented together with result of a new configuration showing a lower limit on the readout noise which can be implemented on the current setup of the CCD based experiments. A second approach to increase the SNR of events at low energy that will be presented is the studies of the spatial conformation of nuclear recoil events at different depth in the active volume by studies of new effects that differ from expected models based on not interacting diffusion model of electrons in the semiconductor.