Designer detectors: a new paradigm for instrument development

James W. Beletic

doi:10.1117/12.566384

7 July 2004 Designer detectors: a new paradigm for instrument development

James W. Beletic

Proceedings Volume 5382, Second Backaskog Workshop on Extremely Large Telescopes; (2004) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.566384
Event: Second Backaskog Workshop on Extremely Large Telescopes, 2003, Backaskog, Sweden

Abstract

The designs of optical and infrared detectors are limited to rectangular arrays of square pixels, aren't they? Not any more! This paper presents a new design paradigm -- custom designed pixel morphology -- that provides significantly better performance in cases where a low light level signal must be detected over a non-rectangular area. Two examples of this new approach are presented in this paper. Both examples are CCDs used for adaptive optics (AO) wavefront sensing: (1) a CCD optimized for curvature wavefront sensing and, (2) a CCD designed for eliminating the laser spot elongation problem that plagues laser guide star AO. In both cases, the detectors will achieve photon-noise limited performance, the Holy Grail for any detector. The name proposed for the customized pixel morphology is "taxel," for "time area element," and a CCD with specialized taxel design is called a "designer detector." The curvature AO CCD was designed and fabricated by MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and fully tested by ESO. This CCD will be used by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope to upgrade their AO system from 19 to 105 subapertures. The laser guide star CCD, which was recently funded by a $1.1M grant from the National Science Foundation, will be demonstrated in the LGS system of an 8 - 10 meter telescope, paving the way for a larger chip for the Extremely Large Telescopes.

Citation Download Citation

James W. Beletic "Designer detectors: a new paradigm for instrument development", Proc. SPIE 5382, Second Backaskog Workshop on Extremely Large Telescopes, (7 July 2004); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.566384

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