FEASIBILITY STUDY FOR A NEW GENERATION CCD IMAGER SYSTEM

THE PROPOSED RESEARCH WILL STUDY THE FEASIBILITY OF CONSTRUCTING A NEW GENERATION, LOW NOISE, SUPER HIGH RESOLUTION CCD IMAGING SYSTEM. THIS SYSTEM WILL EMPLOY THE 2048 X 2048 RESOLUTION ELEMENT, 3,060 MM2 PHOTOACTIVE AREA, LOW NOISE, BACKSIDE ILLUMINATED, TEKTRONIX CCD. THIS DEVICEREPRESENTS A TREMENDOUS INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF RESOLUTIONELEMENTS AND PHOTOACTIVE AREA AVAILABLE OVER ANY TYPE OF SOLID STATE ARRAY DETECTOR. TEKTRONIX HAS PREDICTED THAT A READOUT NOISE OF FIVE ELECTRONS SHOULD BE OBTAINABLE FOR THIS CCD DETECTOR. THE FIRST STAGE IN THIS RESEARCH WILL BETHE DESIGN OF NEW LOW NOISE PREAMPLIFIERS NEEDED TO OBTAIN THIS READ NOISE. IN ORDER TO DETERMINE THE ELECTRO-OPTICAL PROPERTIES OF THIS NEW FAMILY OF CCDS, AS WELL AS OPTIMIZE THE OPERATING CHARACTERISTICS, RESEARCH WILL FOCUS ON THE CURRENTLY AVAILABLE AND MORE TRACTABLE, ELECTRICALLY IDENTICAL 512 X 512 TEKTRONIX CCD. USING THE KNOWLEDGE LEARNED FROM THE SMALLER DEVICE EVALUATION, THE TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS INVOLVED WITH IMPLEMENTING THE LARGER 2048 X 2048 BACKSIDE IMAGER WILL BE INVESTIGATED.