Video Camera for Harsh Environments in Nuclear Energy

Radiation hardened imaging capabilities are needed for a wide range of applications including nuclear energy research, nuclear power plant inspection, and space and defense. Unfortunately, currently available imagers do not meet the requirements for many of these applications. The radiation environment in nuclear reactors and space are extremely harsh and many existing cameras cannot survive under those conditions, while the power plant inspection industry relies on outdated cathode-ray-tube (CRT) technology as there are no better alternatives. In this DOE-funded program, Alphacore has developed a series of CMOS image sensors and video cameras with custom-hardened components that meet the needs of nuclear research, nuclear power plant monitoring, space and defense. The solution is capable of operating in high temperature, high pressure and high radiation environments. The novel video camera significantly improves the state of the art of cameras available for nuclear energy research. Alphacore developed two custom-hardened CMOS image sensor designs, both designed and fabricated in the original Phase II program: 1. Falcon-RH: A CMOS image sensor in which we use a complex ultra-high-frame-rate architecture and a set of selected radiation hardening techniques. The architecture provides >1Mrad hardness combined with an ultra-high frame rate of 5,000fps at 640 x 512 (VGA) and 20,000fps at 320x256 (QVGA) resolutions 2. Vulture-Gigarad: A sensor architecture in which every single transistor and sub-circuit are hardened to highest possible radiation dose, even if the achievable frame rate suffers as a result., and provides >1Grad hardness combined with 120fps at 1,024 x 768 and 1,100fps at 256x256 resolutions. In this Phase IIB program we will optimize the ultra-high-frame-rate Falcon-RH-SXGA for commercialization. The 640 x 512 (VGA) pixel count will be quadrupled to 1,280 x 1,024 (SXGA) to meet the customers’ needs. In the Phase II program we designed all the needed rad-hard circuitry to achieve extremely high radiation hardness for the slower Vulture image sensor. This circuitry will now be applied in the new Falcon sensor in Phase IIB to achieve both extreme frame rate and extreme radiation hardness, the exact combination of features requested by the nuclear energy researchers. The proposed rad-hard camera delivers high-resolution and high framerate and therefore meets the exact needs for nuclear research. Nuclear power plant monitoring is another potential application that will benefit from a CMOS rad-hard image sensor, and Alphacore already has potential customers in this area to transition this technology. In addition, space-qualified versions of the product will also be developed to meet the needs of the aerospace and defense industry.