The darkest EMCCD ever

EMCCDs are devices capable of sub-electron read-out noise at high pixel rate, together with a high quantum efficiency (QE). However, they are plagued by an excess noise factor (ENF) which has the same effect on photometric measurement as if the QE would be halved. In order to get rid of the ENF, the photon counting (PC) operation is mandatory, with the drawback of counting only one photon per pixel per frame. The high frame rate capability of the EMCCDs comes to the rescue, at the price of increased clock induced charges (CIC), which dominates the noise budget of the EMCCD. The CIC can be greatly reduced with an appropriate clocking, which renders the PC operation of the EMCCD very efficient for faint flux photometry or spectroscopy, adaptive optics, ultrafast imaging and Lucky Imaging. This clocking is achievable with a new EMCCD controller: CCCP, the CCD Controller for Counting Photons. This new controller, which is now commercialized by Nüvü cameras inc., was integrated into an EMCCD camera and tested at the observatoire du mont-M'egantic. The results are presented in this paper.

[1]  Ian A. Walmsley,et al.  A characterization of the single-photon sensitivity of an electron multiplying charge-coupled device , 2009 .

[2]  J. Beletic.  OPTICAL AND INFRARED DETECTORS FOR ASTRONOMY , 2006 .

[3]  Derek Ives,et al.  ULTRASPEC: an electron multiplication CCD camera for very low light level high speed astronomical spectrometry , 2008, Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[4]  Ray Bell,et al.  The LLCCD: low-light imaging without the need for an intensifier , 2001, IS&T/SPIE Electronic Imaging.

[5]  Olivier Daigle,et al.  L3CCD results in pure photon-counting mode , 2004, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[6]  B. Hadwen,et al.  The noise performance of electron multiplying charge-coupled devices , 2003 .

[7]  Simon Tulloch.  Monte Carlo Modeling of L3 Detectors in High Time Resolution Applications , 2008 .

[8]  Olivier Daigle,et al.  Faint flux performance of an EMCCD , 2006, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.

[9]  C. Mackay,et al.  Photon counting strategies with low-light-level CCDs , 2003, astro-ph/0307305.

[10]  Nicholas M. Law,et al.  Lucky imaging: diffraction-limited astronomy from the ground in the visible , 2007 .

[11]  E. L. Robinson,et al.  The light curve of the ZZ Ceti star G226-29 , 1983 .

[12]  L. Chemin,et al.  Hα kinematics of the SINGS nearby galaxies survey — I★ , 2006 .

[13]  Sebastien Blais-Ouellette,et al.  Extreme Faint Flux Imaging with an EMCCD , 2009, 0911.4495.

[14]  Jean-Luc Gach,et al.  Fabry‐Pérot Observations Using a New GaAs Photon‐counting System , 2002 .

[15]  Jean-Luc Gach,et al.  FaNTOmM: Fabry Perot of New Technology for the Observatoire du mont Megantic , 2003, SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation.