Ultra-Rad-Hard HD Image Sensor and Camera for Rare Isotope Beam Facilities

The Department of Energy requires a compact digital imaging system (or systems) for beam and target system diagnostic applications. Capable of HD resolution, motion deblurring, object/event detection/identification, object tracking, and data compression, the proposed system is meant to resolve current camera lifespan inadequacies while also boosting energy level resistance. There is a critical need for a radiation-hard camera in a wide range of accelerator facilities; current commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions being used cannot withstand the radiation exposure in these reactor facilities and must be replaced frequently. In the proposed DOE SBIR Phase II program, Alphacore Inc. plans to complete the development and characterization of an image sensor and camera that are capable of operating in very high radiation environments. The novel image sensor and camera, part of Alphacoreĺs Vulture line of camera products, will significantly improve the state of the art of cameras available for nuclear physics research, including future linear accelerators. Alphacore fabricated the first spin of the Vulture image sensor, its test boards and peripheral components were also design and assembled, and the solution is currently undergoing functionality and radiation tests. It operates in the visible spectrum, and under its current radiation-hardened format provides more than 1 Gigarad (Si) tolerance from total ionizing dose (TID). Vulture delivers 120 frames per second (fps) at the full pixel array size of 512 x 768. Our solution that is both high-speed and radiation-hardened is first-of-its-kind in the market. Commercialization activities were also conducted in terms of continued customer engagement, new customer discovery, and planning towards developing an evaluation kit for early customers. In Phase II, Alphacore will fabricate and test the second and final spin of the image sensor, and add improvements to make the camera more usable in the known nuclear physics applications, as an example, by increasing the pixel quantity to 1,024 x 768, and optimizing for near infrared (NIR) wavelengths. Alphacoreĺs scalable architecture allows doubling the pixel quantity with relative ease. This second, optimized spin of the rad-hard VIS-NIR image sensor, entitled ôVulture-HDö, will be the final version. Vulture-HD delivers 120 fps at full pixel array and is user-programmable to achieve 1,100fps at 256 x 256 pixel resolution. Alphacoreĺs solution addresses growing need for rad-hard VIS-NIR vision in nuclear physics, nuclear fusion and other DOE research facilities where current options are using expensive non rad-hard cameras behind heavy shielding or using inexpensive cameras in a sacrificial basis and continuously discarding and replacing them. Meanwhile, the nuclear power plant monitoring industry is still stuck on cathode-rat-tube (CRT) based imagers and cannot implement the progress achieved in CMOS-based imaging technology. Thereĺs also been rising interest in space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), and a rad-hard CMOS image sensor is critical. Alphacore has been engaging with customers in these markets in our commercialization efforts.