ONE

[Barry E. Burke]

Dear Jim and CCD afficionados,

>Guess I'll bug Barry. Is he on CCD World? Do you have his e-mail? . one
>secret must be at the sense node and how to connect to it for high
>sensitivity. I wish we could compare notes.
>
Yes, I'm on CCD-world.  Like Gerry, I don't reply as much as I'd like.
It's tough finding the time to read all my e-mail AND get my work done.

The low-noise output circuit that Gerry talks about is described in our
recent paper "Soft-x-ray CCD imagers for AXAF" in the IEEE Trans. Electrons
Devices, October 1997.  This is a special issue devoted to Solid-State
Image Sensors and full of interesting articles.  For a new structure that
promises even lower noise, you might look at "An epitaxially-grown charge
modulation device" by my colleague Bob Reich in the same issue.

There is also some impressive work by Lester Kozlowski's group at the
Rockwell Science Center that has led to sub-electron noise in silicon
multiplixers coupled to IR detectors.  I don't have the references handy,
but keep an eye on this work.  His techniques could have application to our
visible imager devices.

Barry