Low Light Level CCD Performance and Issues Nagaraja Bezawada UK Astronomy Technology Centre 04 July 2007
Overview of the Talk Introduction to L3CCD (EM CCD) ULTRASPEC Performance and Issues New L3 CCD Proposal 2
Introduction to L3CCD Conventional CCD Close to ideal performance Read noise ~3e- (low readout rates) Long time to readout Noise increases with pixel rate Readout noise dominates in low light level applications Increase S/N Reduce read noise Boost the input signal Integrate longer Photo-multiply before readout 3
Low Light Level CCD Electron multiplication takes place in avalanche gain Register using an HV clock (38-43Volts). Image Area Store Area CCD201 1024x1024 1e- in S N S N = = S S R 2 S S Normal Serial register 1000e- signal out Multiplication register 2 g R Standard output Gain term High voltage clock 4
Charge Coupling Mechanism Pixel 2 Pixel 1 Phase 3 Phase 2 Phase 1 t0 - t1 t1 - t2 t2 - t3 t3 - t4 Gates Si-SiO2 e- e- e- e-e-e-ee- e- e- e- e- e-e-e-ee- e- ee- e- e- e- echarge Transfer Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 1 t0 t1 t2 t3 t4 5
Avalanche Gain Mechanism Impact Ionisation High electric field set by HV clock ~100kV/cm Two electrodes one at fixed DC, other clocked HV Transferring electrons collide with crystal lattice and liberate new electrons These liberate further new electrons Probability is 1-2% per stage Gain = (1+P)N Depends on number of gain stages Applied electric field Operating temperature A 600 stage gain register with 0.015 probability can give ~7500 signal gain 6
Electron Multiplication 7
Avalanche Gain Process Statistical Process Mean gain Variance in the gain Increases the variance in the output signal by 2 Effective QE reduces by factor of 2 8
Monte-Carlo Analysis of the Gain process The sigma of the distribution is 2 times higher than the Poissonian distribution S N = Modelled distribution with avalanche gain Expected Poissonian distribution S 2S R 2 g Input = 30e-, Avalanche gain = 100 9
L3 CCD Wins in Low Light Regime High time resolution imaging, spectroscopy 7 6 5 no RON, only shot noise SNR 4 standard ccd with RON 3 avalanche noise Adaptive optics Photon counting 2 Cross over point 1 RON+avalanche noise+avalanche gain Lucky Astronomy 0 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 photons per pixel per frame 40 45 50 Even with the gain variance, the L3CCD wins over the standard CCD for low light level applications 10
Gain of the Multiplication Register Statistics of the multiplication process give range of output values for 1e input events Monte-Carlo simulation using IDL for 1e input events x/ g P x = e g Input = 1e-, Avalanche gain = 1000 11
Gain of the Multiplication Register Plot Log e of the histogram The inverse slope gives the gain of the avalanche register Gain calculated this way agrees very well when compared with standard output 12
Talk Overview Introduction to L3CCD (EM CCD) ULTRASPEC Performance and Issues New L3 CCD Proposal 13
ULTRASPEC ULTRASPEC high speed spectro-photometer camera commissioned on ESO La Silla 3.6 m telescope on EFOSC instrument Based on new Electron Multiplication CCD technology OPTICON funded project to show benefits of this technology Frame transfer architecture also given read out efficiency improvements New high voltage clock board developed for SDSU-III controller 14
E2V CCD201 1K Frame Transfer CCD 2-Phase Image / storage registers Two Outputs Conventional output Avalanche output 604 Multiplication elements 15
ULTRASPEC High-speed Spectroscopy with zero read noise 16
Talk Overview Introduction to L3CCD (EM CCD) ULTRASPEC Performance and Issues New L3 CCD Proposal 17
Performance Read Noise Avalanche Output (Avalanche Gain = 1) Normal Output Parameter Slow Speed Fast Speed Slow Speed Fast Speed Gain (e/dn) 0.8 3.1 4.1 15.5 Read Noise 4.0e 10.2e 10.6e 24.7e Frame time 4.8s 1.7s 9.7s 3.4s Window (Y=100) 0.24s 0.09s 0.46s 0.17s 18
Gain Controlled by HV Clock 100000 Gain 10000 1000 100 10 1 30.00 32.00 34.00 36.00 38.00 40.00 42.00 HV Clock High (V) Under software control Possible to have different gain for different parts of the CCD Gain can also be switched off no gain noise 19
Gain Varies with Temperature Gain increases at lower temperature due to increased probability of the impact ionisation Lattice vibrations are less at lower temperatures 20
Clock Induced Charge Clock induced charge occurs in every CCD Dominated by readout noise in standard CCD S N = S 2 g C 2S R Serial register only Serial and prallel 21
Performance - CIC Average CIC in a frame System Sensitivity Avalanche Gain Transimpedance Read Noise Average CIC in a frame = = = = = = 10.23 ADU 221.29 ADU/e 1055.29 0.0045 e/adu 0.013 e = 2.94 ADU 0.046 e/pixel/frame 22
CIC Simulated Overscan 23
L3 Performance Dark Non-inverted operation Inverted operation 24
Operating Regimes The three operating modes of an EMCCD, shown in terms of the exposure time required to reach a given signal to noise ratio compared to a perfect shot noise limited detector, all else being equal. 25
Photon Counting Photon detection efficiency versus detection threshold Photon detection efficiency vs. threshold 100 90 % detection of input photo electrons 80 70 60 50 y = 100e -1x 40 30 20 10 0 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 2 No loss in S/N Ideal performance Low CIC Critical threshold Detection threshold (electrons at input to L3 register) Threshold is normally set at 5σ Avalanche gain is set at 10 times of the threshold 26
Normal vs. Avalanche Outputs L3 Camera commissioned with EFOSC2 at ESO s 3.6m Telescope in La Silla (Dec. 06) Top: 10s Spectrum using avalanche output of the UltraSpec Bottom: 10s of Spectrum using normal output (conventional CCDs) S/N Gain: Factor of three 3.6m Telescope with L3 CCD is equivalent to 6.4m telescope with conventional CCD Dead time negligible with EM CCDs compared to the conventional CCDs ESO Messenger, March 07 27
Ageing Effect Drop in multiplication gain over time Shift in the high voltage clock amplitude Ageing time constants Short term Long term Depends on signal size Function of gain 28
Talk Overview Introduction to L3CCD (EM CCD) ULTRASPEC Performance and Issues New L3 CCD Proposal 29
New L3 CCD Proposal Looking for 1M funding for new EM CCD to cover spatial/spectral range and increased read speeds because of FT architecture ESO agreed to lend the NGC 30
Details of Specifications 4096 x 1024 pixels for imaging and likewise for storage 2µm-15µm square pixels, with 100% pixel fill factor. 8 outputs, 3 e rms at 100 khz pixel but can operate at 7.5 MHz. 10 Hz full frame rate. Thinned and back illuminated. E2V Technologies Astro broadband AR coating. 2 phase vertical clocking. A minimum of Grade 1 cosmetic quality. Flatness better than 15 µm peak to valley across full length of detector. Reference/dark rows, columns and blank elements to be supplied on the CCD. Each of output to have separate Output Drain (OD) and Reset Drain (RD) pins. 31
Efficiency of the New Design Observing speed improvement for L3CCD against standard CCD (3e rms read noise) versus photon rate Observing speed factor improvement 100 SN=5 with EM 10 SN=10 with EM SN=25 with EM SN=50 with EM SN=100 with EM SN=200 with EM SN=5, FT, no EM SN=10, FT, no EM 1 SN=25, FT, no EM 1 10 100 1000 10000 SN=50, FT, no EM SN=100, FT, no EM SN=200, FT, no EM 0.1 electrons/pixel/second 100000 32
Thank You 33