From vince at ctecphotonics.com Wed Jan 2 17:29:50 2008 From: vince at ctecphotonics.com (Vince Kasprzak) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 15:29:50 -0500 Subject: CCD-world: Dark Current Message-ID: <021901c84d7e$39fdc6d0$8d4e5247@1e1qsq91b0420h8> Hope everyone had a great Christmas and a Happy New year. I am looking for the bulk dark current parameters for Si, Ge and GaAs. If anyone has these parameters or a reference to them, please email the info. I did a pretty thorough WEB search and couldn't find much. Does anyone know of a magical semiconductor material that has a response from .4 to 2 microns with very low dark current? Thanks Vince Kasprzak -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080102/80392c00/attachment.html From tg.burke at ngc.com Wed Jan 2 17:29:31 2008 From: tg.burke at ngc.com (Burke, Thomas G.) Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 15:29:31 -0500 Subject: CCD-world: Dark Current In-Reply-To: <021901c84d7e$39fdc6d0$8d4e5247@1e1qsq91b0420h8> References: <021901c84d7e$39fdc6d0$8d4e5247@1e1qsq91b0420h8> Message-ID: GaAs can have it. It requires careful selection of the substrate material (bandgap testing) and some special processing, but I've seen results for vis through swir in the past. ________________________________ From: ccd-world-bounces at ctio.noao.edu [mailto:ccd-world-bounces at ctio.noao.edu] On Behalf Of Vince Kasprzak Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2008 3:30 PM To: ccd-world at ctio.noao.edu Subject: CCD-world: Dark Current Hope everyone had a great Christmas and a Happy New year. I am looking for the bulk dark current parameters for Si, Ge and GaAs. If anyone has these parameters or a reference to them, please email the info. I did a pretty thorough WEB search and couldn't find much. Does anyone know of a magical semiconductor material that has a response from .4 to 2 microns with very low dark current? Thanks Vince Kasprzak -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080102/cbeb0c50/attachment.html From rsmith at astro.caltech.edu Mon Jan 7 18:18:51 2008 From: rsmith at astro.caltech.edu (Roger Smith) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 13:18:51 -0800 Subject: CCD-world: Dark Current In-Reply-To: <021901c84d7e$39fdc6d0$8d4e5247@1e1qsq91b0420h8> References: <021901c84d7e$39fdc6d0$8d4e5247@1e1qsq91b0420h8> Message-ID: On Jan 2, 2008, at 12:29 PM, Vince Kasprzak wrote: > Hope everyone had a great Christmas and a Happy New year. > > I am looking for the bulk dark current parameters for Si, Ge and > GaAs. If anyone has these parameters or a reference to them, please > email the info. I did a pretty thorough WEB search and couldn't > find much. > > Does anyone know of a magical semiconductor material that has a > response from .4 to 2 microns with very low dark current? > > Thanks > > Vince Kasprzak > > Vince, The QE you are looking for is easier to find than you think.... Materials with low enough bandgap to be IR sensitive can detect optical wavelengths (and will produce more than one electron per photon when the ratio of photon energy to bandgap gets high enough). The electrical connections to the silicon mux are are made on the the detector side, of course, so the light enters through the substrate. That substrate is chosen to have (among other things) a higher bandgap so that it becomes transparent to the low energy IR photons of interest. Thus the 850nm cut-on wavelength that you will have seen for many for many HgCdTe detectors (for example) is in fact the cut-off wavelength of the CdZnTe substrate. The substrate is needed to support the thin detector layer during growth through hybridization. Once the detector layer is supported by the mux, Over the last few years it has become fairly common for the substrate to be removed, once the detector layer is supported by the mux. There are several reasons to do this (such as cosmic ray interactions in the substrate), but a happy byproduct is that QE is extended down into the UV. The story is the same for InSb and InGaAs, but with cutoff wavelengths around 5um and ~1.6um respectively, neither is a good match to your requirement for "2um with very low dark current". The HgCdTe material is tuned for a range of different cutoff wavelengths. However my instinct is that, in practice, you will get lower dark current by sticking to a standard 2.5um cutoff device and cooling a little more, than going for material which has been customized to your 2um cutoff requirement. -- Roger Roger M. Smith California Institute of Technology 1200 E. California Blvd, Mail Stop 105-24 Pasadena CA 91125, USA Office: 1-626-395-8780 Fax: 1-626-568-1517 e-mail: rsmith at astro.caltech.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080107/ff8dcf78/attachment-0001.html From vince at ctecphotonics.com Mon Jan 7 20:45:19 2008 From: vince at ctecphotonics.com (Vince Kasprzak) Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2008 18:45:19 -0500 Subject: CCD-world: Dark Current References: <021901c84d7e$39fdc6d0$8d4e5247@1e1qsq91b0420h8> Message-ID: <01cb01c85187$5c8230d0$8d4e5247@1e1qsq91b0420h8> Roger, Thanks for your reply, I was more interested in specific total dark current specifications for Germanium, Silicon and Gallium Arsenide. I am doing a study to trade off cooling requirements versus spectral response for these three materials as may be used in an image plane. So far I think Ge has the lowest dark current - les than 1 pA. does this sound right? Thanks, Vince ----- Original Message ----- From: Roger Smith To: Optical & SWIR imager development for professional astronomy Sent: Monday, January 07, 2008 4:18 PM Subject: Re: CCD-world: Dark Current On Jan 2, 2008, at 12:29 PM, Vince Kasprzak wrote: Hope everyone had a great Christmas and a Happy New year. I am looking for the bulk dark current parameters for Si, Ge and GaAs. If anyone has these parameters or a reference to them, please email the info. I did a pretty thorough WEB search and couldn't find much. Does anyone know of a magical semiconductor material that has a response from .4 to 2 microns with very low dark current? Thanks Vince Kasprzak Vince, The QE you are looking for is easier to find than you think.... Materials with low enough bandgap to be IR sensitive can detect optical wavelengths (and will produce more than one electron per photon when the ratio of photon energy to bandgap gets high enough). The electrical connections to the silicon mux are are made on the the detector side, of course, so the light enters through the substrate. That substrate is chosen to have (among other things) a higher bandgap so that it becomes transparent to the low energy IR photons of interest. Thus the 850nm cut-on wavelength that you will have seen for many for many HgCdTe detectors (for example) is in fact the cut-off wavelength of the CdZnTe substrate. The substrate is needed to support the thin detector layer during growth through hybridization. Once the detector layer is supported by the mux, Over the last few years it has become fairly common for the substrate to be removed, once the detector layer is supported by the mux. There are several reasons to do this (such as cosmic ray interactions in the substrate), but a happy byproduct is that QE is extended down into the UV. The story is the same for InSb and InGaAs, but with cutoff wavelengths around 5um and ~1.6um respectively, neither is a good match to your requirement for "2um with very low dark current". The HgCdTe material is tuned for a range of different cutoff wavelengths. However my instinct is that, in practice, you will get lower dark current by sticking to a standard 2.5um cutoff device and cooling a little more, than going for material which has been customized to your 2um cutoff requirement. -- Roger Roger M. Smith California Institute of Technology 1200 E. California Blvd, Mail Stop 105-24 Pasadena CA 91125, USA Office: 1-626-395-8780 Fax: 1-626-568-1517 e-mail: rsmith at astro.caltech.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- CCD-world -- CCD-world is fully moderated. Send posts to CCD-world at ctio.noao.edu Standard replies will go to the list; address personal replies manually. For more information, please go to: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccd-world -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080107/cdf5a1f3/attachment.html From tg.burke at ngc.com Tue Jan 8 10:58:59 2008 From: tg.burke at ngc.com (Burke, Thomas G.) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 08:58:59 -0500 Subject: CCD-world: Imagers with vis through swir capability Message-ID: Somebody asked about the availability of detectors that could detect vis thru swir. We worked with Sensors Unlimited (now a subsidiary of Goodrich) several years ago on this technology. Unfortunately, our funding was cancelled, but it looks like SU continued this effort. They are selling the SU320KTSWVis-1.7RT camera that has response from .4 to 1.7 um (I don't remember what your spec was) http://www.sensorsinc.com/downloads/4110-0148_2_SU320KTSW_SU320KTSWVis.p df They are doing this with a InGaAs array on a silicon readout. The readout has *NO* light detection capability - the InGaAs is sensitive to the entire band. As I recall, they had to hand-pick the wafers/detectors that would be used after some measurements - seems not all wafers, even from the same lot, had the same electrical characteristics (I guess I shouldn't find that to be surprising) Anyhoo, here's their website - It's not vapor-ware, as far as I know. http://www.sensorsinc.com/ -Tom -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080108/23e8ef65/attachment.html From vince at ctecphotonics.com Tue Jan 8 13:52:46 2008 From: vince at ctecphotonics.com (Vince Kasprzak) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 11:52:46 -0500 Subject: CCD-world: Imagers with vis through swir capability References: Message-ID: <018101c85216$e7d0ad30$8d4e5247@1e1qsq91b0420h8> Imagers with vis through swir capabilityTom, Thanks for your response. The response into (but not all) of the visible spectrum looks interesting. The noise (probably mostly dark current ??) seems high - Noise Equivalent Irradiance 1 < 2.5 x 10^9 photons/cm2?s, also Noise (RMS) < 300 electrons. For conditions of night glow and overcast moonles conditions, it seems like they could benefit from some cooling. I believe that Goodrich does not offer cooling. Would you care to offer more comments about this? Vince ----- Original Message ----- From: Burke, Thomas G. To: Optical & SWIR imager development for professional astronomy Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 8:58 AM Subject: CCD-world: Imagers with vis through swir capability Somebody asked about the availability of detectors that could detect vis thru swir. We worked with Sensors Unlimited (now a subsidiary of Goodrich) several years ago on this technology. Unfortunately, our funding was cancelled, but it looks like SU continued this effort. They are selling the SU320KTSWVis-1.7RT camera that has response from .4 to 1.7 um (I don't remember what your spec was) http://www.sensorsinc.com/downloads/4110-0148_2_SU320KTSW_SU320KTSWVis.pdf They are doing this with a InGaAs array on a silicon readout. The readout has *NO* light detection capability - the InGaAs is sensitive to the entire band. As I recall, they had to hand-pick the wafers/detectors that would be used after some measurements - seems not all wafers, even from the same lot, had the same electrical characteristics (I guess I shouldn't find that to be surprising) Anyhoo, here's their website - It's not vapor-ware, as far as I know. http://www.sensorsinc.com/ -Tom ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- CCD-world -- CCD-world is fully moderated. Send posts to CCD-world at ctio.noao.edu Standard replies will go to the list; address personal replies manually. For more information, please go to: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccd-world -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080108/89569d8c/attachment-0001.html From tg.burke at ngc.com Tue Jan 8 14:09:43 2008 From: tg.burke at ngc.com (Burke, Thomas G.) Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2008 12:09:43 -0500 Subject: CCD-world: Imagers with vis through swir capability In-Reply-To: <018101c85216$e7d0ad30$8d4e5247@1e1qsq91b0420h8> References: <018101c85216$e7d0ad30$8d4e5247@1e1qsq91b0420h8> Message-ID: The last time I was up there looking at their devices was several years ago, but... Their cameras were peltier cooled using internal TEC's. I recall they sold gobs of them to the US Army for skyglow night vision type uses. Of course, those were not vis-swir detectors, but swir only. It may be that part of the processing that makes them good for vis also makes some of their other parameters not so good. The imagery I saw from the SWIR images was pretty good, but I cannot speak to it's dynamic range, as it was just imagery, and not in a test environment (it was live, in their front office) Most of their arrays were, I believe, rolling readout type devices, but I see from their products pages that they are offering windowing frame devices now, too. -Tom ________________________________ From: ccd-world-bounces at ctio.noao.edu [mailto:ccd-world-bounces at ctio.noao.edu] On Behalf Of Vince Kasprzak Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 11:53 AM To: Optical & SWIR imager development for professional astronomy Subject: Re: CCD-world: Imagers with vis through swir capability Tom, Thanks for your response. The response into (but not all) of the visible spectrum looks interesting. The noise (probably mostly dark current ??) seems high - Noise Equivalent Irradiance 1 < 2.5 x 10^9 photons/cm2*s, also Noise (RMS) < 300 electrons. For conditions of night glow and overcast moonles conditions, it seems like they could benefit from some cooling. I believe that Goodrich does not offer cooling. Would you care to offer more comments about this? Vince ----- Original Message ----- From: Burke, Thomas G. To: Optical & SWIR imager development for professional astronomy Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 8:58 AM Subject: CCD-world: Imagers with vis through swir capability Somebody asked about the availability of detectors that could detect vis thru swir. We worked with Sensors Unlimited (now a subsidiary of Goodrich) several years ago on this technology. Unfortunately, our funding was cancelled, but it looks like SU continued this effort. They are selling the SU320KTSWVis-1.7RT camera that has response from .4 to 1.7 um (I don't remember what your spec was) http://www.sensorsinc.com/downloads/4110-0148_2_SU320KTSW_SU320KTSWVis.p df They are doing this with a InGaAs array on a silicon readout. The readout has *NO* light detection capability - the InGaAs is sensitive to the entire band. As I recall, they had to hand-pick the wafers/detectors that would be used after some measurements - seems not all wafers, even from the same lot, had the same electrical characteristics (I guess I shouldn't find that to be surprising) Anyhoo, here's their website - It's not vapor-ware, as far as I know. http://www.sensorsinc.com/ -Tom ________________________________ -- CCD-world -- CCD-world is fully moderated. Send posts to CCD-world at ctio.noao.edu Standard replies will go to the list; address personal replies manually. For more information, please go to: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccd-world -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080108/fac922d2/attachment.html From ec at conceptual-analytics.com Thu Jan 17 01:18:39 2008 From: ec at conceptual-analytics.com (Edward Cheng) Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2008 23:18:39 -0500 Subject: CCD-world: Commercial monolithic CMOS imagers at cryo? Message-ID: <4AB72418-E91D-40AE-9052-30E22527E4C6@conceptual-analytics.com> Folks, Has anyone tried to run any of the commercial CMOS-based sensors (e.g. Micron, Sony ...) at cryo? We have an application for a small array (~200 x 200) at up to 30 fps, but it needs to run at 100K and also around 30K. Thanks, EC From vince at ctecphotonics.com Tue Jan 22 16:48:08 2008 From: vince at ctecphotonics.com (Vince Kasprzak) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 14:48:08 -0500 Subject: CCD-world: Number of photons Message-ID: <008d01c85d2f$b67d2500$8d4e5247@1e1qsq91b0420h8> Can anyone provide the procedure for calculating the total number of photons for a spectral distribution that plots wavelength versus pW/(cm^2nm)? Or alternatively for plotting given the power density plot converting it to a photon versus wavelength plot? Vince Kasprzak -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080122/0382ae35/attachment.html From rdorn at eso.org Wed Jan 23 06:39:39 2008 From: rdorn at eso.org (Reinhold Dorn) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 10:39:39 +0100 Subject: CCD-world: Number of photons In-Reply-To: <008d01c85d2f$b67d2500$8d4e5247@1e1qsq91b0420h8> References: <008d01c85d2f$b67d2500$8d4e5247@1e1qsq91b0420h8> Message-ID: <47970B5B.40400@eso.org> Hello Vince, to calculate the photon flux for a given temperature you need to integrate the Planck function over the desired spectral range. You will have to compute this numerically. Lets say from the wavelength range a to b and for a solid angle of 2 pi steradian you can calculate the number of photons per pixel the following way. I usually do this in matlab or idl. q(x,T)=((num int('c1/(x^4*(exp(c2/x./T)-1))',a,b))/pi)*(pi*pixelarea) where x=wavelength, T=temperature and Plancks law for photon emittance in [photons cm^-2 sec^-1 um^-1 ] = c1/(x^4*(exp((c2)/x/T)-1)) Constants: h= 6.626e-34, k= 1.381e-23, c= 2.998e10, c1= 2*pi*c and c2= h*c/k If you do this for a range of temperatures you can you can plot the flux in photons/s/pixel as a function of temperature. If you just want the number of photons for a single wavelength and temperature you simply have to put in the numbers in the Planck equation. Is this what you want to do ? Cheers, Reinhold Dorn Vince Kasprzak wrote: > Can anyone provide the procedure for calculating the total number of > photons for a spectral distribution that plots wavelength versus > pW/(cm^2nm)? > > Or alternatively for plotting given the power density plot converting it > to a photon versus wavelength plot? > > Vince Kasprzak > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > -- CCD-world -- > CCD-world is fully moderated. Send posts to CCD-world at ctio.noao.edu > Standard replies will go to the list; address personal replies manually. > For more information, please go to: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccd-world From rsmith at astro.caltech.edu Tue Jan 22 18:51:40 2008 From: rsmith at astro.caltech.edu (Roger Smith) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 13:51:40 -0800 Subject: CCD-world: getter performance at ~126K Message-ID: <0D8E58F4-467F-4035-B2FA-AC9579E9E13F@astro.caltech.edu> Folks, Can anyone tell me how the pumping performance (virtual volume) of an activated carbon getter scales with temperature. My thermal model for a 100Mpixel focal plane cooled by a Polycold Compact Cooler (formerly "CryoTiger") says that an activated carbon getter placed right at the cold head will reach 126K using Polycold's "PT30" refrigerant gas and standard cold head. My concern is that, at this significantly-higher-than-LN2 temperature, the getter performance may be degraded significantly. How much do I need to increase the getter volume to compensate relative to that required by a getter at 77K? The answer has to be well known by those who design cryopumps but I am hoping CCD_World can save me the search for the information given that those of you using cryotigers must have already faced this issue. -- Roger Roger M. Smith California Institute of Technology 1200 E. California Blvd, Mail Stop 105-24 Pasadena CA 91125, USA Office: 1-626-395-8780 Fax: 1-626-568-1517 e-mail: rsmith at astro.caltech.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080122/feb91668/attachment.html From Tim.Hardy at nrc-cnrc.gc.ca Tue Jan 22 21:59:20 2008 From: Tim.Hardy at nrc-cnrc.gc.ca (Hardy, Tim) Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:59:20 -0800 Subject: CCD-world: Number of photons In-Reply-To: <008d01c85d2f$b67d2500$8d4e5247@1e1qsq91b0420h8> References: <008d01c85d2f$b67d2500$8d4e5247@1e1qsq91b0420h8> Message-ID: To get total photons, you multiply your spectral flux density (pW/cm^2/nm) by the collecting aperture (cm^2) and by the collecting time (seconds). This gives you the total energy collected per nm of bandwidth (pJ/nm). Then divide by the energy of a photon to get total photons/nm. The energy of a photon is dependent on wavelength: Ep(lambda) = h*c/lambda h = 6.626e-22 pJ*s (Planck's constant) c = 3e17 nm/s (speed of light) lambda = wavelength (nm) e.g. for 550nm wavelength photons, Ep = (6.626e-22)*(3e17)/(550) = 3.6e-7 pJ/photon Integrate over the bandwidth to get the total photons. Tim Hardy | tim.hardy at nrc-cnrc.gc.ca Tel/T?l: (250) 363-0051 | Fax: (250) 363-0045 National Research Council Canada | Conseil national de recherches Canada Government of Canada | Gouvernement du Canada 5071 West Saanich Road, Victoria BC V9E 2E7 -----Original Message----- From: ccd-world-bounces at ctio.noao.edu [mailto:ccd-world-bounces at ctio.noao.edu] On Behalf Of Vince Kasprzak Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 11:48 AM To: ccd-world at ctio.noao.edu Subject: CCD-world: Number of photons Can anyone provide the procedure for calculating the total number of photons for a spectral distribution that plots wavelength versus pW/(cm^2nm)? Or alternatively for plotting given the power density plot converting it to a photon versus wavelength plot? Vince Kasprzak From tg.burke at ngc.com Wed Jan 23 13:50:07 2008 From: tg.burke at ngc.com (Burke, Thomas G.) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 10:50:07 -0600 Subject: CCD-world: Number of photons In-Reply-To: References: <008d01c85d2f$b67d2500$8d4e5247@1e1qsq91b0420h8> Message-ID: Then multiply at each band the QE of your detector material to get the number of electrons collected... And then ... Figure out how much noise you got. -----Original Message----- From: ccd-world-bounces at ctio.noao.edu [mailto:ccd-world-bounces at ctio.noao.edu] On Behalf Of Hardy, Tim Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 7:59 PM To: Optical & SWIR imager development for professional astronomy Subject: Re: CCD-world: Number of photons To get total photons, you multiply your spectral flux density (pW/cm^2/nm) by the collecting aperture (cm^2) and by the collecting time (seconds). This gives you the total energy collected per nm of bandwidth (pJ/nm). Then divide by the energy of a photon to get total photons/nm. The energy of a photon is dependent on wavelength: Ep(lambda) = h*c/lambda h = 6.626e-22 pJ*s (Planck's constant) c = 3e17 nm/s (speed of light) lambda = wavelength (nm) e.g. for 550nm wavelength photons, Ep = (6.626e-22)*(3e17)/(550) = 3.6e-7 pJ/photon Integrate over the bandwidth to get the total photons. Tim Hardy | tim.hardy at nrc-cnrc.gc.ca Tel/T?l: (250) 363-0051 | Fax: (250) 363-0045 National Research Council Canada | Conseil national de recherches Canada Government of Canada | Gouvernement du Canada 5071 West Saanich Road, Victoria BC V9E 2E7 -----Original Message----- From: ccd-world-bounces at ctio.noao.edu [mailto:ccd-world-bounces at ctio.noao.edu] On Behalf Of Vince Kasprzak Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 11:48 AM To: ccd-world at ctio.noao.edu Subject: CCD-world: Number of photons Can anyone provide the procedure for calculating the total number of photons for a spectral distribution that plots wavelength versus pW/(cm^2nm)? Or alternatively for plotting given the power density plot converting it to a photon versus wavelength plot? Vince Kasprzak -- CCD-world -- CCD-world is fully moderated. Send posts to CCD-world at ctio.noao.edu Standard replies will go to the list; address personal replies manually. For more information, please go to: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccd-world From dji at roe.ac.uk Wed Jan 23 14:53:47 2008 From: dji at roe.ac.uk (Derek Ives) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 17:53:47 -0000 Subject: CCD-world: HAWAII-2 power on when cold Message-ID: What are other users' sequence for powering up their HAWAII-2 detectors when cold. A UK group are having a hugh increase in dark current and numbers of hot pixels from their HAWAII-2 detector. They powered up their array whilst cooling ( I don't know at what temperature). Now there have been reports in the past of users seeing this exact problem but I can't seem to find them in the log. From my recollection there was no magic fix, rather the detector had to be warmed up and cooled again ? What standard recipes are there out there ? For our detectors we typical sequence our power on to the arrays in a controlled fashion once at operating temperature and this seems to work fine. Regards, Derek -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080123/a5f5a05c/attachment.html From raines at astro.ufl.edu Wed Jan 23 15:22:57 2008 From: raines at astro.ufl.edu (Nick Raines) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 13:22:57 -0500 (EST) Subject: CCD-world: HAWAII-2 power on when cold In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Derek, The FLAMINGOS-1 science array has a funny behaviour with temperature. If it is cooled while off and you attempt to power it up at 77K, it frequently will not turn on properly. My memory is a little hazy on the details, but one of the biases gets drawn down quite a bit, as if there is an internal short in the device. (We never had time to work with Rockwell at the time to figure this out). The first few times this happened to me, the short 'broke' after about half an hour of repeatedly power cycling the array, and the system operated normally afterwards. Sometime later we did the experiment of powering up the array while warm, and then cooled the system down. This 'froze' in a huge number of hot pixels, making the instrument unusable for science. We powered it off, brought it back to room temperature where we took a few images, then we powered it off and began cooling again. Then we powered it up at ~93 K and it seemed fine. As a result, we have taken to powering up the array when it reaches 90-95 K. I believe we sometimes leave it on, and sometimes we turn it off, while cooling the rest of the way to 77K. To my knowledge this does not increase the number of hot pixels substantially. (At least none of the astronomers here who use it substantially have complained to me). Nick Raines ----------- Dept. of Astronomy Assistant Scientist University of Florida Infrared Instrumentation Group 211 Bryant Space Sciences Bldg email: raines at astro.ufl.edu Gainesville, FL phone: 352-392-2052, ext. 244 USA fax: 352-392-5089 On Wed, 23 Jan 2008, Derek Ives wrote: > > What are other users' sequence for powering up their HAWAII-2 detectors > when cold. A UK group are having a hugh increase in dark current and > numbers of hot pixels from their HAWAII-2 detector. They powered up > their array whilst cooling ( I don't know at what temperature). Now > there have been reports in the past of users seeing this exact problem > but I can't seem to find them in the log. From my recollection there was > no magic fix, rather the detector had to be warmed up and cooled again ? > What standard recipes are there out there ? For our detectors we typical > sequence our power on to the arrays in a controlled fashion once at > operating temperature and this seems to work fine. > > Regards, Derek > From pmoore at noao.edu Wed Jan 23 16:20:06 2008 From: pmoore at noao.edu (Peter Moore) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 12:20:06 -0700 Subject: CCD-world: HAWAII-2 power on when cold In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: G'Day Derek, Way back, when we were developing the two instruments for the WHT using the 1024 HAWAII, we saw a dramatic increase of hot pixels when the array was biased during cooldown. We were later contacted by users of the same array in Australia who were experiencing similar symptoms. Together we inferred that the detector should be powered off while aproaching a critical temperature at around 90K (similar to what Nick's reply stated). The basic explanation that we came up with (never confirmed) is that during the processing of the HgCdTe material, some surface defects occurred within the material lattice that left danging bonds. These unfulfilled lattices move to accomodate themselves when the array changed temperature. If an electrostatic charge is present (i.e. when the araay is biased) then this influenced the lattice movement and caused resistive connections to be made across the pixel diode that effectively drained the reset potential after the array was reset. This explanation (right or wrong !) fits the problem and shows why the array must be heated above the critical temperature to remove the hot pixels. Hope this helps, Peter. On Wed, 23 Jan 2008 13:22:57 -0500 (EST) Nick Raines wrote: + Hi Derek, + + The FLAMINGOS-1 science array has a funny behaviour with temperature. If + it is cooled while off and you attempt to power it up at 77K, it + frequently will not turn on properly. My memory is a little hazy on the + details, but one of the biases gets drawn down quite a bit, as if there is + an internal short in the device. (We never had time to work with Rockwell + at the time to figure this out). The first few times this happened to me, + the short 'broke' after about half an hour of repeatedly power cycling the + array, and the system operated normally afterwards. + + Sometime later we did the experiment of powering up the array while warm, + and then cooled the system down. This 'froze' in a huge number of hot + pixels, making the instrument unusable for science. We powered it off, + brought it back to room temperature where we took a few images, then we + powered it off and began cooling again. Then we powered it up at ~93 K + and it seemed fine. + + As a result, we have taken to powering up the array when it reaches 90-95 + K. I believe we sometimes leave it on, and sometimes we turn it off, + while cooling the rest of the way to 77K. To my knowledge this does not + increase the number of hot pixels substantially. (At least none of the + astronomers here who use it substantially have complained to me). + + + Nick Raines + ----------- + Dept. of Astronomy Assistant Scientist + University of Florida Infrared Instrumentation Group + 211 Bryant Space Sciences Bldg email: raines at astro.ufl.edu + Gainesville, FL phone: 352-392-2052, ext. 244 + USA fax: 352-392-5089 + + On Wed, 23 Jan 2008, Derek Ives wrote: + +> +> What are other users' sequence for powering up their HAWAII-2 detectors +> when cold. A UK group are having a hugh increase in dark current and +> numbers of hot pixels from their HAWAII-2 detector. They powered up +> their array whilst cooling ( I don't know at what temperature). Now +> there have been reports in the past of users seeing this exact problem +> but I can't seem to find them in the log. From my recollection there was +> no magic fix, rather the detector had to be warmed up and cooled again ? +> What standard recipes are there out there ? For our detectors we typical +> sequence our power on to the arrays in a controlled fashion once at +> operating temperature and this seems to work fine. +> +> Regards, Derek +> + + -- CCD-world -- + CCD-world is fully moderated. Send posts to CCD-world at ctio.noao.edu + Standard replies will go to the list; address personal replies manually. +For more information, please go to: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccd-world Peter Moore - Detector Engineer - ETS. Email: pmoore at noao.edu Smail: National Optical Astronomy Observatory, Casilla 603, La Serena, Chile. Phone: +56 51 205233 or +56 51 205208 Faxes: +56 51 205342 Skype: pmoore159 It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever produced the phrase, 'as pretty as an airport.' Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort - Douglas Adams 1998. From rsmith at astro.caltech.edu Wed Jan 23 16:50:27 2008 From: rsmith at astro.caltech.edu (Roger Smith) Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2008 11:50:27 -0800 Subject: CCD-world: HAWAII-2 power on when cold In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <38B5B633-5B3A-48B8-9665-BB27560A1092@astro.caltech.edu> On Jan 23, 2008, at 9:53 AM, Derek Ives wrote: > > What are other users' sequence for powering up their HAWAII-2 > detectors when cold. A UK group are having a hugh increase in dark > current and numbers of hot pixels from their HAWAII-2 detector. > They powered up their array whilst cooling ( I don't know at what > temperature). Now there have been reports in the past of users > seeing this exact problem but I can't seem to find them in the log. > From my recollection there was no magic fix, rather the detector > had to be warmed up and cooled again ? What standard recipes are > there out there ? For our detectors we typical sequence our power > on to the arrays in a controlled fashion once at operating > temperature and this seems to work fine. > > Regards, Derek > Derek, We typically power on after cooling and typically don't experience this problem with the two H2 arrays we run on Palomar. There are other possible explanations though... If the detector is (somehow) warmer than the temperature indicated by the sensor then dark current will not only increase but will increase faster on some pixels than others. Do you/they have any darks taken at higher temperature to compare with? A temperature sensor fault will not show up as a bad temperature reading but will instead cause the servo to drive to another temperature until the sensor reading equals the setpoint, so it manifests itself as an abnormally high heater power. Is heater power monitored? Another alternative is that the reverse bias across the detector has increased due to some fault condition. This could mean Dsub is too high or Vreset is too low. If Vreset is too low then the DC level out of the mux will be abnormally low requiring an adjustment of the voltage subtracted at the video input. Dsub too high will not change the video level, but it will produce the symptoms you see. It will also increases well capacity significantly so one can easily test for that if you have a baseline measurement. -- Roger -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080123/0c8dad6b/attachment.html From da at roe.ac.uk Fri Jan 25 06:42:24 2008 From: da at roe.ac.uk (David Atkinson) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 09:42:24 -0000 Subject: CCD-world: Aladdin III: row ripple/row reset In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hello, I have recently been working on implementing row reset on an Aladdin III detector - for CDS imaging. However, when I use row reset (rather than global reset) I see a 'row ripple' effect between odd and even rows on darks (CDS images). The ripple is about 20 ADUs (k = ~7e/ADU). Initially I was resetting every row and this effect was even more pronounced, when I switched to just resetting once for an even/odd row pair the effect was reduced but still significant at 20ADUs. The waveform timing is consistent with the datasheet. Does anyone have any experience with this effect when running row reset and how to mitigate against it? Many thanks, ------------------------------------ David Atkinson CEng MIET, Electronics & Detectors Group, UK Astronomy Technology Centre, Royal Observatory, Blackford Hill, Edinburgh, EH9 3HJ ------------------------------------ Tel: +44 (0)131 668 8229 Fax: +44 (0)131 668 8382 ------------------------------------ From jdg at iac.es Fri Jan 25 06:38:27 2008 From: jdg at iac.es (Jose Javier Diaz Garcia) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 09:38:27 +0000 Subject: CCD-world: HAWAII-2 power on when cold In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4799AE13.3070501@iac.es> Hi, Derek. We have seen a huge increase of dark current and hot pixels in the Hawaii-2 when the detector is been run during cool down. This situation is reversible but you have to warm-up and then cool down the detector again. Regards, Jos? Javier Derek Ives wrote: > > What are other users' sequence for powering up their HAWAII-2 > detectors when cold. A UK group are having a hugh increase in dark > current and numbers of hot pixels from their HAWAII-2 detector. They > powered up their array whilst cooling ( I don't know at what > temperature). Now there have been reports in the past of users seeing > this exact problem but I can't seem to find them in the log. From my > recollection there was no magic fix, rather the detector had to be > warmed up and cooled again ? What standard recipes are there out there > ? For our detectors we typical sequence our power on to the arrays in > a controlled fashion once at operating temperature and this seems to > work fine. > > Regards, Derek > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > >-- CCD-world -- >CCD-world is fully moderated. Send posts to CCD-world at ctio.noao.edu >Standard replies will go to the list; address personal replies manually. >For more information, please go to: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccd-world > > -- Un saludo Jose Javier --------------------------------------------------------------------- Jose Javier Diaz Garcia Departamento de Electronica Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias www.iac.es C/Via Lactea S/N 38200 La Laguna Islas Canarias Spain Phone: 34 922 605332 Fax: 34 922 605210 Email: jdg at iac.es --------------------------------------------------------------------- From wpk at saao.ac.za Fri Jan 25 10:37:22 2008 From: wpk at saao.ac.za (Willie Koorts) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 15:37:22 +0200 Subject: CCD-world: getter performance at ~126K In-Reply-To: <0D8E58F4-467F-4035-B2FA-AC9579E9E13F@astro.caltech.edu> References: <0D8E58F4-467F-4035-B2FA-AC9579E9E13F@astro.caltech.edu> Message-ID: <4799E612.70306@saao.ac.za> Hi Roger A few years ago I was searching for similar data. Attached is something I found that may be of use. Also see what "Vacuum Technology" by A.Roth has to say about it, although he focusses more on Zeolite. I would also like to hear what else you found. Regards Willie -- Mr. W.P. Koorts ( wpk at saao.ac.za ) South African Astronomical Observatory PO Box 9 Observatory 7935 South Africa Tel.(27) (21) 460 9334 Fax.(27) (21) 447 3639 World Wide Web ( Work ) http://www.saao.ac.za World Wide Web ( Personal ) http://www.saao.ac.za/~wpk/ Editor: MNASSA http://mnassa.saao.ac.za - mnassa at saao.ac.za -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: ZeoliteCharcoal.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 262182 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080125/ee91f58e/attachment-0001.pdf From taylor at lowell.edu Fri Jan 25 14:10:00 2008 From: taylor at lowell.edu (Brian Taylor) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:10:00 -0700 Subject: CCD-world: Aladdin III: row ripple/row reset In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi David, Yes, when we were initial setting up our Aladdin III array we found a high noise 'row ripple' when doing a row by row reset versus the global reset. At the time I did not found anything to fix the problem and we decided to put the camera into production with just the global reset. It has been on my list of things to investigate and understand so I will be happy to hear any information that you might collect. Cheers, Brian ---------------------------------------------------------- Brian W. Taylor, Telescope Scientist Boston University ---------------------------------------------------------- Phone: (928)233-3242 or (928)774-3358 Fax: 928-774-6296 Email: taylor at lowell.edu bwtaylor at bu.edu http://www.lowell.edu/~taylor ---------------------------------------------------------- On Jan 25, 2008, at 2:42 AM, David Atkinson wrote: > > Hello, > > I have recently been working on implementing row reset on an Aladdin > III detector - for CDS imaging. > > However, when I use row reset (rather than global reset) I see a > 'row ripple' effect between odd and even rows on darks (CDS > images). The ripple is about 20 ADUs (k = ~7e/ADU). Initially I > was resetting every row and this effect was even more pronounced, > when I switched to just resetting once for an even/odd row pair the > effect was reduced but still significant at 20ADUs. The waveform > timing is consistent with the datasheet. > > Does anyone have any experience with this effect when running row > reset and how to mitigate against it? > > Many thanks, > ------------------------------------ > David Atkinson CEng MIET, > Electronics & Detectors Group, > UK Astronomy Technology Centre, > Royal Observatory, Blackford Hill, > Edinburgh, EH9 3HJ > ------------------------------------ > Tel: +44 (0)131 668 8229 > Fax: +44 (0)131 668 8382 > ------------------------------------ > > > > -- CCD-world -- > CCD-world is fully moderated. Send posts to CCD-world at ctio.noao.edu > Standard replies will go to the list; address personal replies > manually. > For more information, please go to: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccd-world > From enodi at t-online.de Fri Jan 25 12:18:20 2008 From: enodi at t-online.de (Nona Mccann) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:18:20 +0200 Subject: CCD-world: [BULK] Doping fur Ihr bestes Stuck Message-ID: <01c85f76$48125600$49166855@enodi> Versuchen Sie unser Produkt und Sie werden fuhlen was unsere Kunden bestatigen Preise die keine Konkurrenz kennen - Kein peinlicher Arz tbesuch erforderlich - Visa verifizierter Onlineshop - keine versteckte Kosten - Diskrete Verpackung und Zahlung - Kostenlose, arztliche Telefon-Beratung - Kein langes Warten - Auslieferung innerhalb von 2-3 Tagen - Bequem und diskret online bestellen. Originalmedikamente Ciiaaaaaalis... 10 Pack. 21,00 Euro Viiaaaagra... 10 Pack. 11,00 Euro Klicken Sie HIER und Sie erhalten vier Dosen umsonst http://cityoffear.com (bitte warten Sie einen Moment bis die Seite vollstandig geladen ist) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080125/1f73e57e/attachment.html From completive at ragatones.net Fri Jan 25 12:41:45 2008 From: completive at ragatones.net (Frederick Arnold) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:41:45 +0200 Subject: CCD-world: Save over 1128 do11ars at >oemfactorysale .com< Message-ID: <000601c85f67$b8fe4180$0100007f@pdiviub> adobe golive cs2 - 49 vislt >oemfactorysale .com< in your Internet Exp1orer webeasy pro 6.0 - 39 sonic scenarist 3.0 - 49 autodesk architectural studio 3.0 - 39 stuffit deluxe 11 for mac - 29 microsoft onenote pro 2003 - 29 alias maya 7.0 unlimited - 109 adobe encore dvd 2 - 49 parallels desktop 3.0 for mac - 29conitec gamestudio pro a7 7.05 - 89 From tmca at ctio.noao.edu Fri Jan 25 14:41:27 2008 From: tmca at ctio.noao.edu (tmca at ctio.noao.edu) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 14:41:27 -0300 (CLST) Subject: CCD-world: Junk mail - sorry! Message-ID: <11872.201.222.199.168.1201282887.squirrel@www.ctio.noao.edu> Oops, my mistake, I hit the wrong button. Humble apologies for polluting your inboxes. Tim Abbott Moderator, CCD-world From CMOSCCD at aol.com Fri Jan 25 22:23:56 2008 From: CMOSCCD at aol.com (CMOSCCD at aol.com) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:23:56 EST Subject: CCD-world: FUN CMOS SPECTRA Message-ID: CMOS-World. . . . . . . shown below are new x-ray spectra generated by a custom 8 um pixel, 15 um thick, frontside illuminated, Fano noise limited CMOS array. The tangerine leaf spectra (with Ti/ Cr target holder) is interesting. It is hard to accept that CMOS can perform this good (shows the bias one still has for the CCD). Also included is the 'first x-ray light' Fe-55 histogram taken nearly two years ago (third figure). . showing how performance has improved (i.e., didn't see K-alpha and K-beta). Data from Tom Elliott's fun lab at JPL . . . . jim 'FIRST X-RAY LIGHT' HISTOGRAM **************Biggest Grammy Award surprises of all time on AOL Music. (http://music.aol.com/grammys/pictures/never-won-a-grammy?NCID=aolcmp003000000025 48) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080125/09787d6e/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 63487 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080125/09787d6e/attachment-0003.jpe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 69178 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080125/09787d6e/attachment-0004.jpe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 35815 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080125/09787d6e/attachment-0005.jpe From CMOSCCD at aol.com Fri Jan 25 22:27:19 2008 From: CMOSCCD at aol.com (CMOSCCD at aol.com) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:27:19 EST Subject: CCD-world: RTS into 1/f Message-ID: CCD/CMOS World. . . . . . . CMOS sensors are 'RTS noise limited' whereas CCD imagers are '1/f noise limited.' It is interesting to see how RTS noise changes into 1/f noise as the source follower geometry increases in size. For example, Fig. 1a below shows the read noise produced by 476 very 'small' source follow amplifiers. Each column measured has a different source follower with different RTS noise level. Figure 1b. shows 476 very 'large' (CCD amp size) amplifiers. Note that RTS has calmed down significantly into 1/f noise (1/f noise is fundamentally just multiple RTS noise sites contained in the amplifier). Figure 2 shows corresponding noise histograms. RTS noise is not Guassian distributed . . . whereas 1/f noise is. The data from Fig. 1b. implies that read noise should vary from CCD to CCD (most CCDs only have a single amplifier). However, the CMOS amplifiers characterized here are surface channel which produce considerably more RTS and 1/f noise than buried channel counterparts (most CCDs use buried channel source followers). CMOS amplifiers are now starting to go buried (more on this later). In that CMOS read noise can be as low as a couple of electrons (see previous x-ray data). . . . this would tend to say that CMOS will go sub electron shortly. Any bets ? jim Figure 1 Figure 2 **************Biggest Grammy Award surprises of all time on AOL Music. (http://music.aol.com/grammys/pictures/never-won-a-grammy?NCID=aolcmp003000000025 48) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080125/6c2a3ed8/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 71664 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080125/6c2a3ed8/attachment-0002.jpe -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 44869 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080125/6c2a3ed8/attachment-0003.jpe From CMOSCCD at aol.com Fri Jan 25 22:27:36 2008 From: CMOSCCD at aol.com (CMOSCCD at aol.com) Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:27:36 EST Subject: CCD-world: Junk mail - sorry! Message-ID: In a message dated 1/25/2008 9:42:22 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, tmca at ctio.noao.edu writes: Oops, my mistake, I hit the wrong button. Humble apologies for polluting your inboxes. Tim Abbott Moderator, CCD-world **** Tim, We are curious. . . . how often does this kind stuff come to you ? Amazing. . . Jim **** **************Biggest Grammy Award surprises of all time on AOL Music. (http://music.aol.com/grammys/pictures/never-won-a-grammy?NCID=aolcmp003000000025 48) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080125/fb5be148/attachment.html From tmca at ctio.noao.edu Sat Jan 26 01:06:10 2008 From: tmca at ctio.noao.edu (tmca at ctio.noao.edu) Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 01:06:10 -0300 (CLST) Subject: CCD-world: Junk mail - sorry! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20788.201.222.199.168.1201320370.squirrel@www.ctio.noao.edu> Jim Wrote: > Tim, > > We are curious. . . . how often does this kind stuff come to you ? > Amazing. . . You reeeaaally don't want to know... ;-). (Often enough that even I am surprised I haven't messed up before.) Tim From figer at cis.rit.edu Mon Jan 28 17:32:01 2008 From: figer at cis.rit.edu (Don Figer) Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 15:32:01 -0500 Subject: CCD-world: Professorship in CCD/CMOS imaging sensors References: Message-ID: <017d01c861ec$d65b8f80$7fe7fea9@figer> Dear Colleagues, I bring the following job announcement to your attention: http://www.spieworks.com/employment/index.cfm?action=job_detail&job_idI25& Ideally, the position would be filled by an imaging detector expert. Please let me know if you are interested. Thanks, Don -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080128/65a34492/attachment.html From rblackmon at teledyne.com Wed Jan 30 18:39:30 2008 From: rblackmon at teledyne.com (Rebecca R Blackmon) Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2008 13:39:30 -0800 Subject: CCD-world: Amber dewar with AE4128 InSb Message-ID: I have an Amber dewar with an AE4128 128 InSb detector. I do not have the timing pattern and clock for this detector. Can any one please provide me with this information so I can get it up and running. Thank You, Rebecca -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080130/58a47b57/attachment.html From reich at ll.mit.edu Thu Jan 31 20:47:41 2008 From: reich at ll.mit.edu (Reich, Robert) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 18:47:41 -0500 Subject: CCD-world: Image Sensor Development Position Message-ID: <62C8EC062BAC29459AEC3404FDF55D753694C2A420@LLE2K7-BE01.mitll.ad.local> Dear Colleague: The Advanced Imaging Technology Group at Lincoln Laboratory develops, prototypes, and tests solid-state imaging sensors for a variety of government-sponsored programs. The device development effort includes CCDs, CMOS APSs, Geiger-mode avalanche photodiode arrays, and other specialized photodetectors. We also have significant work in exploring device fabrication and packaging techniques. Our Group is seeking candidates to participate in the development of novel silicon-based imaging devices. Candidates should have a background in solid-state device operation and be knowledgeable of system applications for silicon sensors, especially imagers. The person should be skilled at integrated circuit design and layout. The position also requires experience in creating and executing tests to demonstrate sensor performance. Knowledge of silicon VLSI fabrication techniques, process and device simulators, computer programming and hardware design (e.g. printed circuit board design) is desired, as well as knowledge of image analysis techniques. The individual will be involved with generating new programs to support this effort. The position includes interfacing with potential users to identify unmet detector needs and with device experts to explore new solutions to these needs. The successful candidate must be able to work independently, communicate effectively with sponsors and co-workers, and collaborate on a broad range of projects. If interested or for further information, please contact either Bob Reich or Jim Gregory (contact information given below). For more information about Lincoln Laboratory, you can visit http://www.ll.mit.edu/ . Bob Reich Group Leader MIT Lincoln Laboratory ML-201 244 Wood Street Lexington, MA. 02421 Tel. (981)781-7875 email: reich at ll.mit.edu Jim Gregory Assistant Group Leader MIT Lincoln Laboratory ML-201 244 Wood Street Lexington, MA. 02421 Tel. (981)781-787 email: gregory at ll.mit.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080131/72e92407/attachment-0001.html From tabbott at ctio.noao.edu Thu Feb 7 11:21:40 2008 From: tabbott at ctio.noao.edu (Tim Abbott) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 11:21:40 -0300 Subject: CCD-world: Repost: Amber dewar with AE4128 InSb Message-ID: <005901c86994$c193e2f0$44bba8d0$@noao.edu> [Ed. This is for the second time of asking, but there were no answers first time, so I've let it through this one time more.] From: Rebecca R Blackmon [mailto:rblackmon at teledyne.com] Sent: 06 February 2008 21:39 To: ccd-world at ctio.noao.edu Subject: Amber dewar with AE4128 InSb I have an Amber dewar with an AE4128 128 InSb detector. The electronics that provides the clocks and timing pattern is missing. Can any one please provide me with this information so I can get it up and running with other electronics. Thank you so much. Rebecca -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080207/860aa9e0/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Tim Abbott.vcf Type: application/octet-stream Size: 1700 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080207/860aa9e0/attachment.obj From tabbott at ctio.noao.edu Mon Feb 18 13:13:34 2008 From: tabbott at ctio.noao.edu (Tim Abbott) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 13:13:34 -0300 Subject: CCD-world: Tom Droege Message-ID: <010901c87249$36164f70$a242ee50$@noao.edu> Dear CCD-world, I am saddened to report the passing of Tom Droege on Monday Feb 4, at his home after a long battle with cancer. Tom was a long-time subscriber and contributor to CCD-world. In recent years, I was delighted to associate with him directly in his capacity as a consulting engineer on the Dark Energy Camera project at Fermilab. He was a man of great character and experience of what I have come to think of as the old school of electronics engineering, as such his opinion would be worth more than his own weight in gold. Not happy to leave work at the office, he also engaged in possibly the most ambitious amateur astronomy project I have encountered - The Amateur Sky Survey (http://www.resonancepub.com/tass.htm). Tom was a frequent contributor to CCD-world and I have taken the liberty of extracting a few choice quotes assembled below for your enjoyment. A short obituary may be found at http://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/memoriam_droege.html. "Many times I have been called in as a consultant. I say something like 'tear it completely apart and rebuild it this way.' They find another consultant. In the end they don't get a result and spend more effort than it would have taken for the complete rebuild. OK, enough preaching. First make some good measurements so you understand the problem." - Tom Droege "On the topic of transient response. I struggled with this for some time when building my calorimeter for doing 'Cold Fusion' work. Relax, I am not a total nut case. In the end I was able to hold a heat balance to of order 1 mw in a 10 watt calorimeter over months. I ended up debunking every 'excess energy' claim that came my way. Garwin at IBM was most helpful and supportive. It is no fun being a debunker, so I have moved to astronomy." - Tom Droege "It is usually not practical to shield against cosmic rays. They come in sizes up to 10^20 ev. You can reduce the number you see by operating in the bottom of a deep mine. Tunnels are also popular to reduce the cosmic rays seen. Not so practical if you want to look at stars." - Tom Droege "...Now figure out where the return current from this signal goes. If it is not immediately obvious, then you have a problem. If anything else can put a current in this path then you have a problem. I can discuss this at great length but I risk being boring." - Tom Droege "It is often more important to learn how not to do things than how to do things." - Tom Droege "Of course feedback is a good idea. The feedback sensor described [.] could be used to regulate the HV supply to the cable. A few switches to gate the signal into the feedback loop and ... I could make a career out of doing this. ;^)" - Tom Droege "I keep trying to figure out what kind of company I am dealing with in Lockheed. They do just not behave like a commercial chip company. I think that they finally have given me a clue. They have hinted that their largest use involves one way trips where long term performance is not of much interest. Adding in my expected use of a ten year program might bring the average CCD 442A life up to 30 seconds or so." - Tom Droege "I have faced a similar problem in High Energy Physics. In my day, I have trained a number of young physicists to design instrumentation. The background of physicists and astronomers is similar. They both have a good background in science, so they only have to be taught the 'art' of engineering. I quit doing this 10 or 15 years ago. What has happened to my engineering trained physicists? None of them got tenure. This is spite of often being able to 'hold up' an experiment as the only competent person on the job. I don't feel so bad as all of them got good jobs in industry. People who write papers and go to lots of meetings get tenure. Those who neglect this to build good apparatus do not. So the short answer as to why you don't have more good instrumentation people in astronomy is that they are not appreciated. You have to pay to get good people. Not always in money. Appreciation and recognition go a long way. But exploit them and they will go off to high paying jobs in industry." - Tom Droege "As an engineer I just try to limit the unknowns and arrive at a solution that works." - Tom Droege Tim Abbott, CTIO http://ctio.noao.edu/~tmca and http://subjectivelens.com -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Tim Abbott.vcf Type: application/octet-stream Size: 1700 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080218/74767d6f/attachment.obj From tg.burke at ngc.com Mon Feb 18 13:20:44 2008 From: tg.burke at ngc.com (Burke, Thomas G.) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 10:20:44 -0600 Subject: CCD-world: Tom Droege In-Reply-To: <010901c87249$36164f70$a242ee50$@noao.edu> References: <010901c87249$36164f70$a242ee50$@noao.edu> Message-ID: "...Now figure out where the return current from this signal goes. If it is not immediately obvious, then you have a problem. If anything else can put a current in this path then you have a problem. I can discuss this at great length but I risk being boring." - Tom Droege I call this the noise-flow theory of electronics.... From CMOSCCD at aol.com Mon Feb 18 13:42:28 2008 From: CMOSCCD at aol.com (CMOSCCD at aol.com) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 11:42:28 EST Subject: CCD-world: Tom Droege Message-ID: **************Ideas to please picky eaters. Watch video on AOL Living. (http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-campos-duffy/ 2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080218/9e079f2e/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: image/jpeg Size: 90915 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080218/9e079f2e/attachment-0001.jpe From CMOSCCD at aol.com Mon Feb 18 14:07:24 2008 From: CMOSCCD at aol.com (CMOSCCD at aol.com) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 12:07:24 EST Subject: CCD-world: Fwd: Tom Droege Message-ID: **************Ideas to please picky eaters. Watch video on AOL Living. (http://living.aol.com/video/how-to-please-your-picky-eater/rachel-campos-duffy/ 2050827?NCID=aolcmp00300000002598) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080218/6074d5fb/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: CMOSCCD at aol.com Subject: Tom Droege Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 11:51:33 EST Size: 102592 Url: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080218/6074d5fb/attachment-0001.mht From Paul.Jorden at e2v.com Tue Apr 1 06:50:09 2008 From: Paul.Jorden at e2v.com (Jorden, Paul) Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 11:50:09 +0100 Subject: CCD-world: e2v job vacancies Message-ID: <90511C6E9D0A89419745854EACE4C7A8094FBAEC@whl46.e2v.com> Greetings to all- > e2v have 3 engineering vacancies within our Space & Scientific Imaging > business unit that may be of interest to ccd world readers. > The Development (1) and Product Engineer (2) roles are based at our > Chelmsford, UK headquarters and are outlined in the attached pdfs. For work on CCD and CMOS sensors and associated components within e2v. > For further information please contact Jon at jon.kemp at e2v.com. > > Please note, some UK security clearance will be required. > > > <> <> > > > Jon Kemp > > Product Engineer Group Leader > Space & Scientific Imaging > e2v technologies ltd > > +44 (0)1245 453577 > Jon.Kemp at e2v.com > Best Wishes also from Paul Jorden Sent by E2V TECHNOLOGIES PLC or a member of the E2V group of companies. A company registered in England and Wales. Company number 04439718. Registered address 106 Waterhouse Lane, Chelmsford, Essex, CM1 2QU, UK. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080401/daba3aa4/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Product Engineer Advert.pdf Type: application/octet-stream Size: 8659 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080401/daba3aa4/attachment-0002.obj -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: ev2 Product Development Engineer.pdf Type: application/octet-stream Size: 8275 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080401/daba3aa4/attachment-0003.obj From cabak at ucolick.org Tue Apr 1 11:15:58 2008 From: cabak at ucolick.org (G Cabak) Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 08:15:58 -0700 Subject: CCD-world: cyrostats Message-ID: <47F251AE.8010605@ucolick.org> Hello, I'm writing to inquire if anyone has any knowledge or experience concerning the ice formation on the port/vent of an LN2 cryo-vessel to the extent of plugging the vent and causing either damage or rupture to the container. Thanks, gfc -- Gerald Cabak Mechanical Engineer UCO/Lick Observatory Lick Engineering 1156 High Street (UCSC) Santa Cruz, CA 95064 831-459-5892 From jlee at aps.anl.gov Tue Apr 1 12:47:00 2008 From: jlee at aps.anl.gov (John Lee) Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 11:47:00 -0500 Subject: CCD-world: cyrostats In-Reply-To: <47F251AE.8010605@ucolick.org> References: <47F251AE.8010605@ucolick.org> Message-ID: <47F26704.7020205@aps.anl.gov> Dear Gerald, The port or vent on the LN2 vessel will not normally freeze up or plug by ice. There is one situation that may happen is when the vessel is empty (no positive pressure) and water vapor got suck in from the outside by the inside of the dewar which is still cool. It will be a very dangerous situation when all the vents or ports are blocked, however, a vessel for cold liquid usually has two vents/ports. If both of them are block the same time, the most likely option is just let nature to take it course. John Lee G Cabak wrote: > Hello, > > I'm writing to inquire if anyone has any knowledge or experience > concerning the ice formation on the port/vent of an LN2 cryo-vessel to > the extent of plugging the vent and causing either damage or rupture to > the container. > > Thanks, > > gfc > > From akarcher at lbl.gov Tue Apr 1 13:46:08 2008 From: akarcher at lbl.gov (Armin Karcher) Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 10:46:08 -0700 Subject: CCD-world: Leach / ARC LINUX PCI driver Message-ID: <47F274E0.8090002@lbl.gov> We have some Gen II Leach controllers (or ARC as they are now called). We run pretty much everything under Linux, but have found that the drivers for the PCI cards seem to be unstable under some kernel versions. This does not seem to be very predictable, as things may get worse or better with each kernel upgrade. Obviously this is a big concern to us, since many of the relevant security patches are available only on kernels that are untested with the PCI driver. I was wondering if other people have similar experience, if someone has written a more stable driver, or if people have generally moved to Windows. The most modern truly stable kernel I found was 2.6.11-1.1369_FC4smp We found that the next updates of 2.6.11 were very unstable (with the PCI driver) but 2.6.24.3-12.fc8 is reasonably stable (it still crashes occasionally during image read-out.) It does require minor changes to the PCI driver source to compile, so I doubt many people are using it... You can post me your experiences or tips by e-mail and I will summarize to CCD-world. Armin Karcher akarcher at lbl.gov Lawrence Berkeley National Lab From tg.burke at ngc.com Tue Apr 1 16:03:50 2008 From: tg.burke at ngc.com (Burke, Thomas G.) Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 15:03:50 -0500 Subject: CCD-world: Interline transfer ccd's Message-ID: All, What're kokak's interline ccd's going for these days? I'm working on a small project, and as such am on a shoestring budget. Any other good manufacturers of inexpensive (whatever that means) inter-line transfer arrays - and what's their cost? (You get the idea I'm primarily interested in cost?) Thanks, Tom Why an inter-line? I'm looking for very fast integration times, and I don't want readout blur. I'm not at my desk, but I can be reached at 443-603-7308 From baxter at itl.arizona.edu Tue Apr 1 16:30:37 2008 From: baxter at itl.arizona.edu (Dave Baxter) Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 13:30:37 -0700 Subject: CCD-world: cryostats In-Reply-To: <47F251AE.8010605@ucolick.org> References: <47F251AE.8010605@ucolick.org> Message-ID: <09958048C4B41F49A5E6A7BE1DCC40FB377EC1@star.itl.arizona.edu> Gerald When Rockwell was testing some of the First NICMOS arrays they pumped on the LN2 reservoir of a dewar full of LN2 and did their testing. This creates a ice block of LN2 inside the reservoir. When they were done testing they dumped out what little liquid was left and left it with the ice block cover the fill tube. I have a copy of what happened after a few hours of warming. It blew the top section of the dewar right through the ceiling and the room looked like a small bomb had been detonated with papers scattered everywhere. Generally I have seen that during normal use though the venting of the LN2 keeps this from happening. I have seen this happen when filling the dewar so we have gone to smaller fill tube to allow the vapors to escape and keep this from happening. David Baxter Staff Technician Sr. Imaging Technology Laboratory University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona 85721-0330 ph. 520-628-2078 ext 107 baxter at itl.arizona.edu -----Original Message----- From: ccd-world-bounces at ctio.noao.edu [mailto:ccd-world-bounces at ctio.noao.edu] On Behalf Of G Cabak Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2008 8:16 AM To: CCD World Subject: CCD-world: cyrostats Hello, I'm writing to inquire if anyone has any knowledge or experience concerning the ice formation on the port/vent of an LN2 cryo-vessel to the extent of plugging the vent and causing either damage or rupture to the container. Thanks, gfc -- Gerald Cabak Mechanical Engineer UCO/Lick Observatory Lick Engineering 1156 High Street (UCSC) Santa Cruz, CA 95064 831-459-5892 -- CCD-world -- CCD-world is fully moderated. Send posts to CCD-world at ctio.noao.edu Standard replies will go to the list; address personal replies manually. For more information, please go to: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccd-world From Allan.R.Eisenman at jpl.nasa.gov Tue Apr 1 17:20:21 2008 From: Allan.R.Eisenman at jpl.nasa.gov (Allan R. Eisenman) Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 14:20:21 -0700 Subject: CCD-world: Interline transfer ccd's In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: For a small, real cheap, Interline CCD that some amateur astronomers have used there is the Sony ICX039DLA-6. With its support chip set it was in the 100 - 200 $ price range. A number of them are in orbit in a Danish star tracker. I keep one on my desk as a sample of a CCD. It's has a PAL format. Reasonably low noise. >All, > > What're kokak's interline ccd's going for these days? I'm >working on a small project, and as such am on a shoestring budget. >Any other good manufacturers of inexpensive (whatever that means) >inter-line transfer arrays - and what's their cost? > >(You get the idea I'm primarily interested in cost?) > > Thanks, > Tom > >Why an inter-line? I'm looking for very fast integration times, and >I don't want readout blur. >I'm not at my desk, but I can be reached at 443-603-7308 > >-- CCD-world -- >CCD-world is fully moderated. Send posts to CCD-world at ctio.noao.edu >Standard replies will go to the list; address personal replies manually. >For more information, please go to: >http://www.ctio.noao.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccd-world From tg.burke at ngc.com Tue Apr 1 18:51:23 2008 From: tg.burke at ngc.com (Burke, Thomas G.) Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 17:51:23 -0500 Subject: CCD-world: Interline transfer ccd's Message-ID: Thank you Allan. Who is the vendor for these parts, or should I contact Sony directly? -Tom I'm not at my desk, but I can be reached at 443-603-7308 ----- Original Message ----- From: ccd-world-bounces at ctio.noao.edu To: Optical & SWIR imager development for professional astronomy Sent: Tue Apr 01 16:20:21 2008 Subject: Re: CCD-world: Interline transfer ccd's For a small, real cheap, Interline CCD that some amateur astronomers have used there is the Sony ICX039DLA-6. With its support chip set it was in the 100 - 200 $ price range. A number of them are in orbit in a Danish star tracker. I keep one on my desk as a sample of a CCD. It's has a PAL format. Reasonably low noise. >All, > > What're kokak's interline ccd's going for these days? I'm >working on a small project, and as such am on a shoestring budget. >Any other good manufacturers of inexpensive (whatever that means) >inter-line transfer arrays - and what's their cost? > >(You get the idea I'm primarily interested in cost?) > > Thanks, > Tom > >Why an inter-line? I'm looking for very fast integration times, and >I don't want readout blur. >I'm not at my desk, but I can be reached at 443-603-7308 > >-- CCD-world -- >CCD-world is fully moderated. Send posts to CCD-world at ctio.noao.edu >Standard replies will go to the list; address personal replies manually. >For more information, please go to: >http://www.ctio.noao.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccd-world -- CCD-world -- CCD-world is fully moderated. Send posts to CCD-world at ctio.noao.edu Standard replies will go to the list; address personal replies manually. For more information, please go to: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccd-world From vince at ctecphotonics.com Tue Apr 1 20:41:06 2008 From: vince at ctecphotonics.com (Vince Kasprzak) Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 19:41:06 -0500 Subject: CCD-world: Interline transfer ccd's References: Message-ID: <006201c8945a$3cbf0be0$8d4e5247@1e1qsq91b0420h8> Sony used to be the answer, But, currently Sony has a policy of not selling to anyone except for large accounts. Can't even buy them from their distributor. You might try getting a spare CCD part from video camera vendors like Costar Imaging or Aegis. Should cost less than $100. Vince Kasprzak ----- Original Message ----- From: "Burke, Thomas G." To: Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2008 3:03 PM Subject: CCD-world: Interline transfer ccd's > All, > > What're kokak's interline ccd's going for these days? I'm working on a small project, and as such am on a shoestring budget. Any other good manufacturers of inexpensive (whatever that means) inter-line transfer arrays - and what's their cost? > > (You get the idea I'm primarily interested in cost?) > > Thanks, > Tom > > Why an inter-line? I'm looking for very fast integration times, and I don't want readout blur. > I'm not at my desk, but I can be reached at 443-603-7308 > > -- CCD-world -- > CCD-world is fully moderated. Send posts to CCD-world at ctio.noao.edu > Standard replies will go to the list; address personal replies manually. > For more information, please go to: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccd-world From Allan.R.Eisenman at jpl.nasa.gov Tue Apr 1 19:40:38 2008 From: Allan.R.Eisenman at jpl.nasa.gov (Allan R. Eisenman) Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 16:40:38 -0700 Subject: CCD-world: Interline transfer ccd's In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: You're welcome. You might want to check Sony's web site for a distributor, or see if they sell direct. It has been a about a year since I checked their catalog to verify that they were still available. From dgeorge at cyanogen.com Tue Apr 1 23:42:56 2008 From: dgeorge at cyanogen.com (Douglas B. George) Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 23:42:56 -0400 Subject: CCD-world: Interline transfer ccd's In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47F300C0.4020006@cyanogen.com> Burke, Thomas G. wrote: > > Thank you Allan. > Who is the vendor for these parts, or should I contact Sony directly? Try Framos www.framos.co.uk Doug ----------------------------------- Doug George dgeorge at cyanogen.com Diffraction Limited Makers of Cyanogen Imaging Products http://www.cyanogen.com 100 Craig Henry Dr., Suite 202 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K2G 5W3 Phone: (613) 225-2732 Fax: (613) 225-9688 ----------------------------------- From John.Greenhill at utas.edu.au Tue Apr 1 23:36:10 2008 From: John.Greenhill at utas.edu.au (John Greenhill) Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2008 14:36:10 +1100 Subject: CCD-world: Fibre optic card for Gen 1 Leach controller Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.1.20080402143300.014f67d8@utas.edu.au> Does anyone have for sale a Fibre optic Sbus card for a Gen 1 Leach controller? John Greenhill John Greenhill, School of Maths and Physics, University of Tasmania, Private bag 37, GPO Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, 7001 Phone 61 3 6226 2429 Work, 61 3 6234 1516 Home, Fax 61 3 6226 2410 John.Greenhill at utas.edu.au From nbarker at gemini.edu Wed Apr 2 22:23:32 2008 From: nbarker at gemini.edu (Neil Barker) Date: Wed, 2 Apr 2008 16:23:32 -1000 Subject: CCD-world: posting for CCD World Message-ID: <4177C397654A8042A56B09FFD85F76C4020B4475@EXCHANGE.gemini.edu> Hi, please can you post the following message. Thank you Neil Barker At Gemini Observatory, it is our mission to teach humanity about the universe. Come join our international team operating two of the world's cutting-edge telescopes, located in Hawaii & Chile. We have an immediate opening in Hilo Hawaii, for an experienced Electronics Engineer to support electronic operations and future development. As well as supporting our operations you will be responsible for establishing and organizing a CCD/IR detector lab, as a technical centre. Major responsibilities will include: You will be responsible for the maintenance, troubleshooting and optimization of the controllers and optical and infrared light detector systems at both Gemini telescopes. Additionally, the successful candidate will provide support for and engage in instrument procurement of cryogenics, vacuum, detectors and motor control systems. On an intermittent basis the Senior Electronics Engineer will also provide managerial oversight, including but not limited to, acting as Telescope Technical Manager. The successful candidate will have: Bachelor's degree in Engineering/Electronics/related field; Advanced knowledge of astronomical instrumentation and optical and infrared detector systems; and six years relevant work experience. Must be able to work at 14,000-foot elevation, possess a valid driver's license, have a clean driving record, and be able to drive a 4WD vehicle. Must have or be able to obtain a valid passport for international travel. We have an excellent benefits package including 24 paid vacation days and 12 paid holidays per year, paid relocation, life insurance, 401(a) and 403(b) retirement plans, tuition assistance, long term disability insurance, travel/accident insurance, flexible spending account, and medical and dental insurance. How to Apply, please send your resume along with the names of 3 references familiar with your work and salary history to gemini-jobs at gemini.edu AA/EOE -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080402/f9b0fe73/attachment-0001.html From wbehrens at cox.net Fri Apr 4 13:53:16 2008 From: wbehrens at cox.net (William Behrens) Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 12:53:16 -0500 Subject: CCD-world: Interline transfer ccd's In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <000701c8967c$c2e5a480$a805010a@darphbobo> What size array are you looking for? I have a number of ICX259AL's (new) and some pulled ICX248AL's. I would be willing to donate one for the cost of shipping. William Behrens wbehrens at ccd-labs.com http://www-ccd-labs.com -----Original Message----- From: ccd-world-bounces at ctio.noao.edu [mailto:ccd-world-bounces at ctio.noao.edu] On Behalf Of Burke, Thomas G. Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2008 3:04 PM To: ccd-world at ctio.noao.edu Subject: CCD-world: Interline transfer ccd's All, What're kokak's interline ccd's going for these days? I'm working on a small project, and as such am on a shoestring budget. Any other good manufacturers of inexpensive (whatever that means) inter-line transfer arrays - and what's their cost? (You get the idea I'm primarily interested in cost?) Thanks, Tom Why an inter-line? I'm looking for very fast integration times, and I don't want readout blur. I'm not at my desk, but I can be reached at 443-603-7308 -- CCD-world -- CCD-world is fully moderated. Send posts to CCD-world at ctio.noao.edu Standard replies will go to the list; address personal replies manually. For more information, please go to: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccd-world From adeep at iucaa.ernet.in Tue Apr 8 05:16:26 2008 From: adeep at iucaa.ernet.in (adeep at iucaa.ernet.in) Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2008 14:46:26 +0530 (IST) Subject: CCD-world: SMPS vs Linear Power Supplies In-Reply-To: <90511C6E9D0A89419745854EACE4C7A8094FBAEC@whl46.e2v.com> References: <90511C6E9D0A89419745854EACE4C7A8094FBAEC@whl46.e2v.com> Message-ID: <2102.132.229.223.151.1207646186.squirrel@www.iucaa.ernet.in> Hello We are palnning to replace bulky Linear Power Supplies used with CCD Controller as well as Infrared Detectors with SMPS ( switched mode power supplies) The old generation SMPS used to be noisy. Newer SMPS are better and comparable to Linear in respect of ripple etc. Do you experience in using SMPS for CCDs. We would like to know the vendor and make of such SMPS which can be used with Astronomy grade CCDs. Thanks. regards, atul -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by OpenProtect(http://www.openprotect.com), and is believed to be clean. From Jean.C.Shelton at jpl.nasa.gov Tue Apr 8 13:48:50 2008 From: Jean.C.Shelton at jpl.nasa.gov (Chris Shelton) Date: Tue, 08 Apr 2008 10:48:50 -0700 Subject: CCD-world: SMPS vs Linear Power Supplies In-Reply-To: <2102.132.229.223.151.1207646186.squirrel@www.iucaa.ernet.in> References: <90511C6E9D0A89419745854EACE4C7A8094FBAEC@whl46.e2v.com> <2102.132.229.223.151.1207646186.squirrel@www.iucaa.ernet.in> Message-ID: <47FBB002.1000306@jpl.nasa.gov> Atul, Linear Technology has a nice line of low-noise switchers. Look under Home/Products/Power Management/Switching Regulators/Ultra Low Noise Regulators I used an LT1310 on an infrared wavefront sensor about 100mm from the detector and preamps and it worked just fine. This was in 2003, see the above link for newer parts. Some recommendations -- o Synchronize everything, the switch frequency, pixel rate, line and frame rates. This means using the sync input on the switcher, driving it from your CCD controller, making frames, lines, and pixels all start at an invariant phase of the switch cycle. o Use a high switch frequency -- this keeps the parts small. Add input and output LRC filters to the switcher. o Connect switcher power to the output of the CCD analog signal chain, add power filters between stages. By the time you get to the CCD the power should be very clean. o Use only shielded magnetics o Make split analog and digital ground planes, have them come together under the A/D converter. Regards, Chris Shelton adeep at iucaa.ernet.in wrote: > Hello > > We are palnning to replace bulky Linear Power Supplies used with CCD > Controller as well > as Infrared Detectors with SMPS ( switched mode power supplies) > The old generation SMPS used to be noisy. Newer SMPS are better and > comparable to Linear in respect of ripple etc. Do you experience in using > SMPS for CCDs. We would like to know the vendor and make of such SMPS > which can be used with Astronomy grade CCDs. > > Thanks. > regards, > atul > > > -- Chris Shelton, Ph.D Principal Engineer Interferometry and Advanced Optical Systems Section 383 Jet Propulsion Laboratory 4800 Oak Grove Drive, M/S 171-113 Pasadena, CA 91109 818 354 2871 office 818 645 7137 cell Jean.C.Shelton at jpl.nasa.gov From bobtek at fishcamp.com Tue Apr 8 13:38:31 2008 From: bobtek at fishcamp.com (bob piatek) Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2008 10:38:31 -0700 Subject: CCD-world: SMPS vs Linear Power Supplies In-Reply-To: <2102.132.229.223.151.1207646186.squirrel@www.iucaa.ernet.in> References: <90511C6E9D0A89419745854EACE4C7A8094FBAEC@whl46.e2v.com> <2102.132.229.223.151.1207646186.squirrel@www.iucaa.ernet.in> Message-ID: Atul, I've used SMPS in camera designs in the past with very good results. I'd make the following recommendations: 1) pay careful attention to PWB layout in the area of the SMPS following the manufacturer's recommendation for the device controller you are using. Good, solid copper islands in the area carrying the high dynamic currents of the circuit are a must for proper operation as well as lowering EMI generated. 2) use of L-C "Pi" filters on both the input and outputs of the SMPS can be used. The output filter will reduce ripple to acceptable levels while the input filter will minimize conducted noise being back fed into the supply lines from the SMPS. 3) many SMPS controller chips allow you to synchronize the switching frequency to an external clock. Usually, you can generate a clock that is a sub-rate of the master or pixel clocks in your system. This will reduce the generation of spurious beat frequencies caused by the different SMPS switching rates in your system that would fall into the pass band of your analog signal processing chain. This technique is used with great success in audio and telecom systems where noise sensitivity is a big issue. 4) for those instances where you need the absolute quietest supply rails, you can follow a SMPS with a linear LDO type regulator. The SMPS will provide a high efficiency first stage and minimize the power dissipation of the LDO regulator. Set the SMPS output voltage to a couple of volts above the drop-out voltage of the LDO to minimize its power dissipation. Regards, Bob Piatek fishcamp engineering 105 W. Clark Ave. Orcutt, CA 93455 http://www.fishcamp.com TEL: 805-937-6365 FAX: 805-937-6252 On Apr 8, 2008, at 2:16 AM, adeep at iucaa.ernet.in wrote: > Hello > > We are palnning to replace bulky Linear Power Supplies used with CCD > Controller as well > as Infrared Detectors with SMPS ( switched mode power supplies) > The old generation SMPS used to be noisy. Newer SMPS are better and > comparable to Linear in respect of ripple etc. Do you experience in > using > SMPS for CCDs. We would like to know the vendor and make of such SMPS > which can be used with Astronomy grade CCDs. > > Thanks. > regards, > atul > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080408/ce5ce757/attachment.html From nz at usno.navy.mil Wed Apr 9 07:58:36 2008 From: nz at usno.navy.mil (Norbert Zacharias) Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2008 07:58:36 -0400 Subject: CCD-world: Leach controller and Linux Message-ID: <20080409115836.GA24073@ad.usno.navy.mil> Hi Armin Karcher, we experienced similar issues as you did. The US Naval Observatory 10k by 10k camera (single STA1600A chip) runs with a Leach controller under Linux. It would not work properly under Fedora Core 5. However, thanks to Greg Bredthauer (STA) it runs flowlessly with FC4. Our new system currently under development will have 4 of those chips and the entire robotic system (telescope control, camera electronics, shutter and reduction pipeline) will be running with Linux. Norbert ------------------------------------------------ Norbert Zacharias, Ph.D. Chief of Cataloging Division Astrometry Department US Naval Observatory voice: 202 762 1423 3450 Mass. Ave. NW fax: 202 762 1516 Washington, DC 20392 e-mail: nz at usno.navy.mil ------------------------------------------------ From tg.burke at ngc.com Tue Apr 8 14:33:18 2008 From: tg.burke at ngc.com (Burke, Thomas G.) Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2008 13:33:18 -0500 Subject: CCD-world: SMPS vs Linear Power Supplies Message-ID: Good advice Also carry signals with their grounds where you can. If signals or power must be carried by cable, try to stick with twisted shielded pairs where it won't hurt frequency response. Look at potentiaal noise injection points, and try to make it such that noise has a low impedence path back to it's origin. I'm not at my desk, but I can be reached at 443-603-7308 ----- Original Message ----- From: ccd-world-bounces at ctio.noao.edu To: Optical & SWIR imager development for professional astronomy Sent: Tue Apr 08 12:48:50 2008 Subject: Re: CCD-world: SMPS vs Linear Power Supplies Atul, Linear Technology has a nice line of low-noise switchers. Look under Home/Products/Power Management/Switching Regulators/Ultra Low Noise Regulators I used an LT1310 on an infrared wavefront sensor about 100mm from the detector and preamps and it worked just fine. This was in 2003, see the above link for newer parts. Some recommendations -- o Synchronize everything, the switch frequency, pixel rate, line and frame rates. This means using the sync input on the switcher, driving it from your CCD controller, making frames, lines, and pixels all start at an invariant phase of the switch cycle. o Use a high switch frequency -- this keeps the parts small. Add input and output LRC filters to the switcher. o Connect switcher power to the output of the CCD analog signal chain, add power filters between stages. By the time you get to the CCD the power should be very clean. o Use only shielded magnetics o Make split analog and digital ground planes, have them come together under the A/D converter. Regards, Chris Shelton adeep at iucaa.ernet.in wrote: > Hello > > We are palnning to replace bulky Linear Power Supplies used with CCD > Controller as well > as Infrared Detectors with SMPS ( switched mode power supplies) > The old generation SMPS used to be noisy. Newer SMPS are better and > comparable to Linear in respect of ripple etc. Do you experience in using > SMPS for CCDs. We would like to know the vendor and make of such SMPS > which can be used with Astronomy grade CCDs. > > Thanks. > regards, > atul > > > -- Chris Shelton, Ph.D Principal Engineer Interferometry and Advanced Optical Systems Section 383 Jet Propulsion Laboratory 4800 Oak Grove Drive, M/S 171-113 Pasadena, CA 91109 818 354 2871 office 818 645 7137 cell Jean.C.Shelton at jpl.nasa.gov -- CCD-world -- CCD-world is fully moderated. Send posts to CCD-world at ctio.noao.edu Standard replies will go to the list; address personal replies manually. For more information, please go to: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccd-world From pcdh at us.ibm.com Wed Apr 9 14:33:04 2008 From: pcdh at us.ibm.com (Phil Hobbs) Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2008 14:33:04 -0400 Subject: CCD-world: SMPS vs Linear Power Supplies In-Reply-To: Message-ID: A BJT capacitance multiplier is great following a SMPS. You can get 100 dB or more of noise suppression at tens to hundreds of kilohertz, using a BJT and one or two RCs. You lose one Vbe drop (0.7V), but it's often well worth it. Cheers, Phil Hobbs bob piatek Sent by: ccd-world-bounces at ctio.noao.edu 04/08/2008 01:38 PM Please respond to Optical & SWIR imager development for professional astronomy To Optical & SWIR imager development for professional astronomy cc Subject Re: CCD-world: SMPS vs Linear Power Supplies Atul, I've used SMPS in camera designs in the past with very good results. I'd make the following recommendations: 1) pay careful attention to PWB layout in the area of the SMPS following the manufacturer's recommendation for the device controller you are using. Good, solid copper islands in the area carrying the high dynamic currents of the circuit are a must for proper operation as well as lowering EMI generated. 2) use of L-C "Pi" filters on both the input and outputs of the SMPS can be used. The output filter will reduce ripple to acceptable levels while the input filter will minimize conducted noise being back fed into the supply lines from the SMPS. 3) many SMPS controller chips allow you to synchronize the switching frequency to an external clock. Usually, you can generate a clock that is a sub-rate of the master or pixel clocks in your system. This will reduce the generation of spurious beat frequencies caused by the different SMPS switching rates in your system that would fall into the pass band of your analog signal processing chain. This technique is used with great success in audio and telecom systems where noise sensitivity is a big issue. 4) for those instances where you need the absolute quietest supply rails, you can follow a SMPS with a linear LDO type regulator. The SMPS will provide a high efficiency first stage and minimize the power dissipation of the LDO regulator. Set the SMPS output voltage to a couple of volts above the drop-out voltage of the LDO to minimize its power dissipation. Regards, Bob Piatek fishcamp engineering 105 W. Clark Ave. Orcutt, CA 93455 http://www.fishcamp.com TEL: 805-937-6365 FAX: 805-937-6252 On Apr 8, 2008, at 2:16 AM, adeep at iucaa.ernet.in wrote: Hello We are palnning to replace bulky Linear Power Supplies used with CCD Controller as well as Infrared Detectors with SMPS ( switched mode power supplies) The old generation SMPS used to be noisy. Newer SMPS are better and comparable to Linear in respect of ripple etc. Do you experience in using SMPS for CCDs. We would like to know the vendor and make of such SMPS which can be used with Astronomy grade CCDs. Thanks. regards, atul -- CCD-world -- CCD-world is fully moderated. Send posts to CCD-world at ctio.noao.edu Standard replies will go to the list; address personal replies manually. For more information, please go to: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccd-world From leach at astro-cam.com Wed Apr 9 20:38:38 2008 From: leach at astro-cam.com (Bob Leach) Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:38:38 -0700 Subject: CCD-world: Switchers and Linux with Leach controllers Message-ID: <47FD618E.40403@astro-cam.com> Dear CCD-Worlders, The Leach controllers have been using commercially available switcher modules for many years for both IR and CCD controller systems, replacing a custom built toroidal linear supply from long ago. The switcher supply relies on two techniques to reduce the ripple and noise from the switcher modules - hefty RC filters are placed on each module's output, and all the modules are placed in a cabinet separate from the controller housing connected by a cable at least 1/2 meter in length. These two techniques could be used in addition to those discussed to reduce switcher noise. The Linux drivers discussed by Armin Karcher for the PCI boards are distributed on our Web site, along with drivers for Sun Solaris, Windows and the Vista operating systems. The Linux driver has only been updated to Fedora Core 4, which happened about a year and a half ago. Because new releases of FC generally change the PCI handling environment as well as memory management we've found over the years that changes in our driver are needed to keep up with these releases. So its no surprise that our FC4 driver does not work with later releases, and that the failures generally happen with image transfer. We learned through CCD-World that its about time we updated our driver, and that we need to explain this issue more visibly on our Web site. Many thanks for the discussion, Bob Leach Astronomical Research Cameras, Inc. www.astro-cam.com From reich at ll.mit.edu Sat Apr 12 12:14:07 2008 From: reich at ll.mit.edu (Reich, Robert) Date: Sat, 12 Apr 2008 12:14:07 -0400 Subject: CCD-world: Camera Designer Position Message-ID: <62C8EC062BAC29459AEC3404FDF55D754AC04A9AB8@LLE2K7-BE01.mitll.ad.local> Dear Colleague: The Advanced Imaging Technology Group at Lincoln Laboratory develops, prototypes, and tests solid-state imaging sensors for a variety of government-sponsored programs. The device development effort includes CCDs, CMOS APSs, Geiger-mode avalanche photodiode arrays, and other specialized photodetectors. We also have significant work in exploring device fabrication and packaging techniques. Our Group is seeking candidates skilled in the design of the electronics to operate the image sensors, with a record of innovative design in instrumentation. The position requires experience in analog and digital circuit design, printed circuit board (PCB) design and layout, FPGA and DSP programming (e.g. VHDL), and software development (e.g. C++, IDL, Matlab). The person must be knowledgeable in SPICE circuit simulation and with CAD PCB tools. The position also requires characterization of the integrated electronics and image sensor, so experience with electronic test equipment such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, spectrum analyzers, etc. is a must. The person should be knowledgeable about solid-state device operation. The successful candidate must be able to work independently, communicate effectively with sponsors and co-workers, and to be involved in a broad range of projects. Other desirable skills include an aptitude with vacuum systems, mechanical design, and image analysis and signal processing. If interested or for further information, please contact either Bob Reich or Jim Gregory (contact information given below). For more information about Lincoln Laboratory, you can visit http://www.ll.mit.edu/ . Bob Reich Group Leader MIT Lincoln Laboratory ML-201 244 Wood Street Lexington, MA. 02421 Tel. (981)781-7875 email: reich at ll.mit.edu Jim Gregory Assistant Group Leader MIT Lincoln Laboratory ML-201 244 Wood Street Lexington, MA. 02421 Tel. (981)781-787 email: gregory at ll.mit.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080412/2cb77892/attachment-0001.html From tg.burke at ngc.com Mon Apr 28 12:02:35 2008 From: tg.burke at ngc.com (Burke, Thomas G.) Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:02:35 -0500 Subject: CCD-world: Interline transfer ccd's In-Reply-To: <000701c8967c$c2e5a480$a805010a@darphbobo> References: <000701c8967c$c2e5a480$a805010a@darphbobo> Message-ID: Thank you all for your help - I have been out for 5 weeks, recovering from a few arm & shoulder surgeries - leading to an inability to type well, if at all. I am now th eight dollar and forty-two cent man. ... Which is probably more than I was woth to start. For you gamers out there, no - I did not respawn as a ninja. Darnit. -Tom -----Original Message----- From: ccd-world-bounces at ctio.noao.edu [mailto:ccd-world-bounces at ctio.noao.edu] On Behalf Of William Behrens Sent: Friday, April 04, 2008 1:53 PM To: 'Optical & SWIR imager development for professional astronomy' Subject: Re: CCD-world: Interline transfer ccd's What size array are you looking for? I have a number of ICX259AL's (new) and some pulled ICX248AL's. I would be willing to donate one for the cost of shipping. William Behrens wbehrens at ccd-labs.com http://www-ccd-labs.com -----Original Message----- From: ccd-world-bounces at ctio.noao.edu [mailto:ccd-world-bounces at ctio.noao.edu] On Behalf Of Burke, Thomas G. Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2008 3:04 PM To: ccd-world at ctio.noao.edu Subject: CCD-world: Interline transfer ccd's All, What're kokak's interline ccd's going for these days? I'm working on a small project, and as such am on a shoestring budget. Any other good manufacturers of inexpensive (whatever that means) inter-line transfer arrays - and what's their cost? (You get the idea I'm primarily interested in cost?) Thanks, Tom Why an inter-line? I'm looking for very fast integration times, and I don't want readout blur. I'm not at my desk, but I can be reached at 443-603-7308 -- CCD-world -- CCD-world is fully moderated. Send posts to CCD-world at ctio.noao.edu Standard replies will go to the list; address personal replies manually. For more information, please go to: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccd-world -- CCD-world -- CCD-world is fully moderated. Send posts to CCD-world at ctio.noao.edu Standard replies will go to the list; address personal replies manually. For more information, please go to: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccd-world From favio.bortoletto at oapd.inaf.it Fri May 16 10:24:28 2008 From: favio.bortoletto at oapd.inaf.it (Favio Bortoletto) Date: Fri, 16 May 2008 16:24:28 +0200 Subject: CCD-world: R: Interline transfer ccd's In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000001c8b760$8d9c18e0$d3f1cec1@fboffice> Dear all, i saw recently several Emails concerned with the Sony interline CCDs. I have found some problems trying to implement the so called 'electronic shutter' option in a ICX285AL chip. In my understanding it should work forcing a sbstrate polarization reversal so forcing the electronic charge to recombine. Unfortunately, even following the few detaild available on the data-sheet, the feature doesn't work properly, i.e. the chip refuses to clear completely. Any one from the CCDW with some experience on the subject ? Thanks a lot, and greetings Favio ------------------------------------------ Favio Bortoletto INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico Vicolo Osservatorio 5 35122 Padova - ITALY Off. Tel. : 0039 049 829 3485 Lab. Tel. : 0039 049 829 3418 Off. Fax : 0039 049 875 9840 House : 0039 049 8804059 ------------------------------------------ From vince at ctecphotonics.com Mon May 19 19:47:06 2008 From: vince at ctecphotonics.com (Vince Kasprzak) Date: Mon, 19 May 2008 19:47:06 -0400 Subject: CCD-world: R: Interline transfer ccd's References: <000001c8b760$8d9c18e0$d3f1cec1@fboffice> Message-ID: <003201c8ba0a$a5bf5c00$8d4e5247@1e1qsq91b0420h8> The clear pulse should occur only in the horizontal interval and you need to have as many clear pulses prior to the beginning of the actual integration period. Vince Kasprzak ----- Original Message ----- From: "Favio Bortoletto" To: "'Optical & SWIR imager development for professional astronomy'" Cc: "Fabio Mammano" Sent: Friday, May 16, 2008 10:24 AM Subject: CCD-world: R: Interline transfer ccd's > Dear all, i saw recently several Emails concerned with the Sony > interline CCDs. I have found some problems trying to implement the so > called 'electronic > shutter' option in a ICX285AL chip. In my understanding it should work > forcing a sbstrate polarization reversal so forcing the electronic > charge > to recombine. Unfortunately, even following the few detaild available on > the data-sheet, the feature doesn't work properly, i.e. the chip refuses > to clear completely. Any one from the CCDW with some experience on the > subject ? > > Thanks a lot, and greetings Favio > > > ------------------------------------------ > Favio Bortoletto > INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico > Vicolo Osservatorio 5 > 35122 Padova - ITALY > Off. Tel. : 0039 049 829 3485 > Lab. Tel. : 0039 049 829 3418 > Off. Fax : 0039 049 875 9840 > House : 0039 049 8804059 > ------------------------------------------ > > > -- CCD-world -- > CCD-world is fully moderated. Send posts to CCD-world at ctio.noao.edu > Standard replies will go to the list; address personal replies manually. > For more information, please go to: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccd-world From atwood at mps.ohio-state.edu Tue May 20 11:43:20 2008 From: atwood at mps.ohio-state.edu (Bruce Atwood) Date: Tue, 20 May 2008 11:43:20 -0400 Subject: CCD-world: Switchers and Linux with Leach controllers In-Reply-To: <47FD618E.40403@astro-cam.com> References: <47FD618E.40403@astro-cam.com> Message-ID: <4832F198.3020206@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu> Bob, don't you mean LC not RC filters? It might be useful to some to have your favorite part numbers for the inductors. My supplies live in the same box with the controller electronics so I'm sticking with linear supplies but there is no question that switchers can be made to work. Bob Leach wrote: > Dear CCD-Worlders, > > The Leach controllers have been using commercially available switcher > modules for many years for both IR and CCD controller systems, > replacing a custom built toroidal linear supply from long ago. The > switcher supply relies on two techniques to reduce the ripple and > noise from the switcher modules - hefty RC filters are placed on > each module's output, and all the modules are placed in a cabinet > separate from the controller housing connected by a cable at least > 1/2 meter in length. These two techniques could be used in > addition to those discussed to reduce switcher noise. > > The Linux drivers discussed by Armin Karcher for the PCI boards > are distributed on our Web site, along with drivers for Sun Solaris, > Windows and the Vista operating systems. The Linux driver has > only been updated to Fedora Core 4, which happened about a year > and a half ago. Because new releases of FC generally change the > PCI handling environment as well as memory management we've > found over the years that changes in our driver are needed to keep > up with these releases. So its no surprise that our FC4 driver does > not work with later releases, and that the failures generally > happen with image transfer. We learned through CCD-World that > its about time we updated our driver, and that we need to explain > this issue more visibly on our Web site. > > Many thanks for the discussion, > > Bob Leach > Astronomical Research Cameras, Inc. > www.astro-cam.com > > > > -- CCD-world -- > CCD-world is fully moderated. Send posts to CCD-world at ctio.noao.edu > Standard replies will go to the list; address personal replies manually. > For more information, please go to: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccd-world > > -- Bruce Atwood Department of Astronomy The Ohio State University 140 West 18th Ave. Columbus, OH 43210-1173 Phone 614.292.6279 FAX 614.292.2928 From atwood at mps.ohio-state.edu Tue May 20 11:45:48 2008 From: atwood at mps.ohio-state.edu (Bruce Atwood) Date: Tue, 20 May 2008 11:45:48 -0400 Subject: CCD-world: R: Interline transfer ccd's In-Reply-To: <003201c8ba0a$a5bf5c00$8d4e5247@1e1qsq91b0420h8> References: <000001c8b760$8d9c18e0$d3f1cec1@fboffice> <003201c8ba0a$a5bf5c00$8d4e5247@1e1qsq91b0420h8> Message-ID: <4832F22C.4070902@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080520/a5694482/attachment-0001.html From mpeck at ucolick.org Wed May 21 19:13:50 2008 From: mpeck at ucolick.org (Michael Peck) Date: Wed, 21 May 2008 16:13:50 -0700 Subject: CCD-world: SMPS vs Linear Power Supplies In-Reply-To: <2102.132.229.223.151.1207646186.squirrel@www.iucaa.ernet.in> References: <90511C6E9D0A89419745854EACE4C7A8094FBAEC@whl46.e2v.com> <2102.132.229.223.151.1207646186.squirrel@www.iucaa.ernet.in> Message-ID: <4834ACAE.3000901@ucolick.org> Hello Atul, At UCO/Lick Observatory: The Excelsys SMPS was recommended to us by Keck. We are currently testing it with a Leach II controller and see no difference in the noise performance from our Leach II system with PowerOne linear supplies. We are generating +/- 16.5V, +/- 6.5V, +5V, +32V, +12V (for fans), -30V (for LBNL Bias Board). ----- At Berkeley Camera Engineering: I have also used VICOR supplies in my higher speed IR camera systems very successfully - full 16-bit performance at 2MHz digitizing rate and 12 channels running. That system used a 24VDC input VICOR instead of 110VAC so I could heavily filter any RF - it was installed on the AEOS telescope on Maui - 10 volts/meter RFI at the telescope from the Maui TV stations 50 meters away. The VICOR was mounted in a separate EMI chamber with a 1/4" aluminum wall between it and the FPA controller with RF chokes to feed the power thru the wall. It has been 10 years since I delivered the AEOS system so the VICOR part numbers have changed. They now have a new line of low noise output supplies - the MegaPAC-EL series - which is an upgrade from what I used. ----- The Excelsys units are available from DigiKey. Here is what we are running. The DigiKey part numbers are the next to last column: 1 ea 6 Slot Chassis 127mm, Xcite Family, Excelsys PN XCA-01 633-1003-ND $299.42 ea 1 ea DC Output Module, powerMods, Excelsys PN Xg2 633-1015-ND $129.06 ea 2 ea DC Output Module, powerMods, Excelsys PN Xg5 633-1018-ND $129.06 ea 1 ea DC Output Module, powerMods, Excelsys PN Xg7 633-1019-ND $84.13 ea 2 ea DC Output Module, powerMods, Excelsys PN Xg8 633-1020-ND $121.50 ea 10 ea Connector, Rectangular, Socket, Molex PN 51110-0850 WM18032-ND $0.40 ea 100 ea Connector, Contact, Molex PN 50394-8100 WM1128-ND $0.11 ea 10 ea Connector, Terminal Block, Phoenix Contact PN 1757035 277-1013-ND $2.48 ea Total Cost Estimate $1,053.61 Michael Peck UCO/Lick Observatory mpeck at ucolick.org --- Michael Peck President Berkeley Camera Engineering mikep at bcam.com adeep at iucaa.ernet.in wrote: > Hello > > We are palnning to replace bulky Linear Power Supplies used with CCD > Controller as well > as Infrared Detectors with SMPS ( switched mode power supplies) > The old generation SMPS used to be noisy. Newer SMPS are better and > comparable to Linear in respect of ripple etc. Do you experience in using > SMPS for CCDs. We would like to know the vendor and make of such SMPS > which can be used with Astronomy grade CCDs. > > Thanks. > regards, > atul > > From leach at astro-cam.com Thu May 22 13:12:13 2008 From: leach at astro-cam.com (Bob Leach) Date: Thu, 22 May 2008 10:12:13 -0700 Subject: CCD-world: Switching power supplies Message-ID: <4835A96D.7010107@astro-cam.com> Dear Bruce, Yes, its an LC filter, not RC. We use the 48 microhenry FIT-80 toroidal inductors from Triad Magnetics with 470 microfarad aluminum electrolytics in parallel with 1 microfarad ceramics. These are placed both on the power lines and their return lines as well. The power supplies are switcher modules from the CU-1# series from XP Power. The same power supplies are used for both Gen II and Gen III systems. The FFT power spectra look pretty clean as long as the power supply is kept in its own shielded box separated by a cable from the controller electronics. Putting them in the same cabinet near each other lights up the FFT image like a Christmas tree. Bob Leach Astronomical Research Cameras, Inc. From Allan.R.Eisenman at jpl.nasa.gov Thu May 22 21:01:03 2008 From: Allan.R.Eisenman at jpl.nasa.gov (Allan R. Eisenman) Date: Thu, 22 May 2008 18:01:03 -0700 Subject: CCD-world: Switching power supplies In-Reply-To: <4835A96D.7010107@astro-cam.com> References: <4835A96D.7010107@astro-cam.com> Message-ID: It may not be an issue, but I had a problem, once, when the the clocks hit the LC resonance frequency. I controlled it with a damping resistor across the inductor. Of course, this compromised the filter effectiveness. >Dear Bruce, > >Yes, its an LC filter, not RC. We use the 48 microhenry FIT-80 >toroidal inductors from Triad Magnetics with 470 microfarad >aluminum electrolytics in parallel with 1 microfarad ceramics. >These are placed both on the power lines and their return lines as well. >The power supplies are switcher modules from the CU-1# series >from XP Power. The same power supplies are used for both Gen II >and Gen III systems. The FFT power spectra look pretty clean as >long as the power supply is kept in its own shielded box separated >by a cable from the controller electronics. Putting them in the same >cabinet near each other lights up the FFT image like a Christmas tree. > >Bob Leach >Astronomical Research Cameras, Inc. > > >-- CCD-world -- >CCD-world is fully moderated. Send posts to CCD-world at ctio.noao.edu >Standard replies will go to the list; address personal replies manually. >For more information, please go to: >http://www.ctio.noao.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccd-world From adolfo.garcia at sener.es Tue Jun 3 09:20:53 2008 From: adolfo.garcia at sener.es (Garcia Marin, Adolfo) Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2008 15:20:53 +0200 Subject: CCD-world: Removing of the CCD optical window Message-ID: <097511D6E3026145AC5F5F2C632451290190314D@mnt49.mad.sener.es> Hello, I have an astronomical CCD camera (Apogee) and I would like to remove the protective optical window in order to put at a low distance of the sensor (about 1500 microns) a microlens array based objective. Has anyone previous experience in such operation?. In particular, I would like to know how critical is to carry out the process in air atmosphere instead of in an inert gas atmosphere (Ar, Ne, etc)?. Kind regards, Adolfo ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Adolfo Garc?a-Mar?n Optical Engineer Optical Design & Image Processing Group / Aerospatial Division SENER Ingenier?a y Sistemas, S. A. - www.sener.es C/ Severo Ochoa, 4 (Parque Tecnologico de Madrid) 28760 - Tres Cantos (SPAIN) Tel: +34 918 077 254 - Fax: +34 918 077 479 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080603/02dbf779/attachment.html From Paul.Jorden at e2v.com Tue Jun 3 11:42:35 2008 From: Paul.Jorden at e2v.com (Jorden, Paul) Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2008 16:42:35 +0100 Subject: CCD-world: Removing of the CCD optical window Message-ID: <8821BCD7410B064BA4414E4F8080E5EB7F4CC1@whl46.e2v.com> Hi Adolfo, I do not know which sensor type you have in your camera, so cannot give specific advice. . I can say that the CCDs that e2v manufactures are assembled and tested in a clean room with controlled (air) environment. Then they are packed, sometimes with a window cover, and usually in a dry nitrogen box or bag for shipping and storage. If you remove the window keep the device face down as much as possible and in a clean environment to minimise dust accummulation. Don't forget to be careful about the bond wires which will project above the chip surface. Anti-static precautions should be followed of course. Regards, Paul Jorden _____ From: Garcia Marin, Adolfo [mailto:adolfo.garcia at sener.es] Sent: 03 June 2008 14:21 To: ccd-world at ctio.noao.edu Subject: CCD-world: Removing of the CCD optical window Hello, I have an astronomical CCD camera (Apogee) and I would like to remove the protective optical window in order to put at a low distance of the sensor (about 1500 microns) a microlens array based objective. Has anyone previous experience in such operation?. In particular, I would like to know how critical is to carry out the process in air atmosphere instead of in an inert gas atmosphere (Ar, Ne, etc)?. Kind regards, Adolfo ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------- Adolfo Garc?a-Mar?n Optical Engineer Optical Design & Image Processing Group / Aerospatial Division SENER Ingenier?a y Sistemas, S. A. - www.sener.es C/ Severo Ochoa, 4 (Parque Tecnologico de Madrid) 28760 - Tres Cantos (SPAIN) Tel: +34 918 077 254 - Fax: +34 918 077 479 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------- ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080603/e5bc9cbe/attachment-0001.html From vince at ctecphotonics.com Tue Jun 3 15:53:10 2008 From: vince at ctecphotonics.com (Vince Kasprzak) Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2008 15:53:10 -0400 Subject: CCD-world: Removing of the CCD optical window References: <097511D6E3026145AC5F5F2C632451290190314D@mnt49.mad.sener.es> Message-ID: <001e01c8c5b3$763a9df0$8d4e5247@1e1qsq91b0420h8> Adolfo, I have some experience with this. Depending on what adhesive was used to bond the window, heat may be used to soften the adhesive. I used a large (high wattage) soldering iron and made a special rectangular tip of copper, about equal to the size of the window. I made sure that the bottom side of the CCD was on a heat sink, to keep the CCD as cool as possible while heating the window. A clean air environment, like a clean bench with filtered air flow is recommended. Check with the CCD manufacturer to get the properties of the adhesive, before you decide to use this method. The alternative is to machine the window off with a diamond tipped tool, while the CCD is held with the window side done. I have never done this, but I have heard that others have. I believe that this service is provided by Spectral Instruments http://www.specinst.com/ . Gary Sims is a good guy and may even tell you how to do it. Also Stanford Photonics does this regularly for there own in-house use http://www.stanfordphotonics.com They usually don't provide this as a service, but maybe they can help you. They won't tell you how to do it. Vince Kasprzak ----- Original Message ----- From: Garcia Marin, Adolfo To: ccd-world at ctio.noao.edu Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2008 9:20 AM Subject: CCD-world: Removing of the CCD optical window Hello, I have an astronomical CCD camera (Apogee) and I would like to remove the protective optical window in order to put at a low distance of the sensor (about 1500 microns) a microlens array based objective. Has anyone previous experience in such operation?. In particular, I would like to know how critical is to carry out the process in air atmosphere instead of in an inert gas atmosphere (Ar, Ne, etc)?. Kind regards, Adolfo ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Adolfo Garc?a-Mar?n Optical Engineer Optical Design & Image Processing Group / Aerospatial Division SENER Ingenier?a y Sistemas, S. A. - www.sener.es C/ Severo Ochoa, 4 (Parque Tecnologico de Madrid) 28760 - Tres Cantos (SPAIN) Tel: +34 918 077 254 - Fax: +34 918 077 479 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- CCD-world -- CCD-world is fully moderated. Send posts to CCD-world at ctio.noao.edu Standard replies will go to the list; address personal replies manually. For more information, please go to: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccd-world -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080603/8b315e34/attachment.html From wbrown at ccd.com Tue Jun 3 15:54:04 2008 From: wbrown at ccd.com (Wayne Brown) Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2008 12:54:04 -0700 Subject: CCD-world: Removing of the CCD optical window In-Reply-To: <001e01c8c5b3$763a9df0$8d4e5247@1e1qsq91b0420h8> References: <097511D6E3026145AC5F5F2C632451290190314D@mnt49.mad.sener.es> <001e01c8c5b3$763a9df0$8d4e5247@1e1qsq91b0420h8> Message-ID: <008501c8c5b3$9470fdf0$bd52f9d0$@com> Adolfo, I must have missed your original post. What camera is this? Unless the CCD manufacturer gave no choice, CCDs used in the Alta and AP series systems do NOT have sealed cover windows. Feel free to contact me directly and we can see what we can do to help. Wayne Brown Apogee Instruments Inc. From: ccd-world-bounces at ctio.noao.edu [mailto:ccd-world-bounces at ctio.noao.edu] On Behalf Of Vince Kasprzak Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2008 12:53 PM To: Optical & SWIR imager development for professional astronomy Subject: Re: CCD-world: Removing of the CCD optical window Adolfo, I have some experience with this. Depending on what adhesive was used to bond the window, heat may be used to soften the adhesive. I used a large (high wattage) soldering iron and made a special rectangular tip of copper, about equal to the size of the window. I made sure that the bottom side of the CCD was on a heat sink, to keep the CCD as cool as possible while heating the window. A clean air environment, like a clean bench with filtered air flow is recommended. Check with the CCD manufacturer to get the properties of the adhesive, before you decide to use this method. The alternative is to machine the window off with a diamond tipped tool, while the CCD is held with the window side done. I have never done this, but I have heard that others have. I believe that this service is provided by Spectral Instruments http://www.specinst.com/ . Gary Sims is a good guy and may even tell you how to do it. Also Stanford Photonics does this regularly for there own in-house use http://www.stanfordphotonics.com They usually don't provide this as a service, but maybe they can help you. They won't tell you how to do it. Vince Kasprzak ----- Original Message ----- From: Garcia Marin, Adolfo To: ccd-world at ctio.noao.edu Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2008 9:20 AM Subject: CCD-world: Removing of the CCD optical window Hello, I have an astronomical CCD camera (Apogee) and I would like to remove the protective optical window in order to put at a low distance of the sensor (about 1500 microns) a microlens array based objective. Has anyone previous experience in such operation?. In particular, I would like to know how critical is to carry out the process in air atmosphere instead of in an inert gas atmosphere (Ar, Ne, etc)?. Kind regards, Adolfo ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------- Adolfo Garc?a-Mar?n Optical Engineer Optical Design & Image Processing Group / Aerospatial Division SENER Ingenier?a y Sistemas, S. A. - www.sener.es C/ Severo Ochoa, 4 (Parque Tecnologico de Madrid) 28760 ? Tres Cantos (SPAIN) Tel: +34 918 077 254 ? Fax: +34 918 077 479 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------- _____ -- CCD-world -- CCD-world is fully moderated. Send posts to CCD-world at ctio.noao.edu Standard replies will go to the list; address personal replies manually. For more information, please go to: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccd-world -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.ctio.noao.edu/pipermail/ccd-world/attachments/20080603/d1b0e09b/attachment-0001.html From dkg at slac.stanford.edu Wed Jun 11 18:20:22 2008 From: dkg at slac.stanford.edu (Gilmore, Kirk) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:20:22 -0700 Subject: CCD-world: Scientist/Instrumentation position at Purdue Message-ID: Colleagues, The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) Project would like to announce an opportunity of employment for a post-doctoral position at Purdue. This position is described below and we welcome any questions or comments about the nature of the position or the project. The public pages for the project can be found at http://www.lsst.org Best Regards, Kirk Gilmore LSST Camera Manager Stanford/SLAC/Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology M.S. 29 2575 Sand Hill Rd. Menlo Park, CA 94025 (650)926-3303 (o) (650)926-8570 (f) (831)334-1631 (c) dkg at slac.stanford.edu Postdoctoral Research Fellowship with LSST at Purdue University The experimental particle physics group at Purdue University invites applications for a postdoctoral research fellowship to work on The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope project for the fabrication and evaluation of astronomical instrumentation. This will include the analysis of astronomical images obtained for this project. LSST is a proposed ground-based wide field telescope that will image the entire sky every three nights. The LSST data set will provide multiple tests of Dark Energy, a detailed map of the Milky Way, and will open a movie-like window on objects that change or move on rapid timescales: including supernovae, and potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroids. The survey power exceeds any previous or planned astronomical observing campaign by over an order of magnitude. The LSST camera, where much of this research will be centered, contains a 3.2-gigapixel focal plane array (FPA) comprised of 189 4K x 4K CCD sensors with 10 micron pixels. This will be the largest CCD array so far constructed. The sensors are deep-depletion, back-illuminated devices with a highly segmented architecture that enables the entire array to be read out in 2 seconds. Guide sensors and wavefront sensors form four Corner Rafts, which are located at the corners of the field. The Corner Rafts play an essential role in enabling LSST to achieve its science goals. The Purdue group has R&D, design, implementation, and construction responsibilities for the Corner Rafts. In the first phase of the work we will evaluate state- of-the-art CCD candidate guide sensors and CCD wavefront sensors. We have outstanding in-house facilities for detector development and recently played a major role in the construction of the forward pixel detector of the CMS experiment at the LHC. The Purdue group also have a strong interest in studying dark energy through cosmic shear measurements. Purdue has excellent resources for dat