A High Resolution, High Frame Rate Detector Based on a Microchannel Plate Readout With the Medipix2 Counting CMOS Pixel Chip

Author

Mikulec, Bettina ; Vallerga, John V. ; McPhate, Jason B. ; Tremsin, Anton S. ; Siegmund, Oswald H W ; Clark, Allan G.

Author_Institution

Univ. of Geneva, Switzerland

Volume

52

Issue

4

fYear

2005

Firstpage

1021

Lastpage

1026

Abstract

The future of ground-based optical astronomy lies with advancements in adaptive optics (AO) to overcome the limitations that the atmosphere places on high resolution imaging. A key technology for AO systems on future very large telescopes are the wavefront sensors (WFS) which detect the optical phase error and send corrections to deformable mirrors. Telescopes with $\\gg$ 30 m diameters will require WFS detectors that have large pixel formats (512 $\\times$ 512), low noise $(< 3 e^{\\hbox{-}}/ \\hbox{\\\\pixel)}$ and very high frame rates ( $\\sim$ 1 kHz). These requirements have led to the idea of a bare CMOS active pixel device (the Medipix2 chip) functioning in counting mode as an anode with noiseless readout for a microchannel plate (MCP) detector and at 1 kHz continuous frame rate. First measurement results obtained with this novel detector are presented both for UV photons and beta particles.

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; adaptive optics; astronomical telescopes; beta-ray detection; gamma-ray detection; mirrors; nuclear electronics; position sensitive particle detectors; readout electronics; wavefront sensors; Medipix2 counting CMOS pixel chip; UV photons; adaptive optics; anode; beta particles; deformable mirrors; ground-based optical astronomy; high resolution high frame rate detector; high resolution imaging; microchannel plate readout; optical phase error; photon counting; very large telescopes; wavefront sensors; Adaptive optics; Astronomy; Atmosphere; CMOS image sensors; Detectors; High-resolution imaging; Microchannel; Optical noise; Optical sensors; Telescopes; Adaptive optics; CMOS pixel chip; high frame rate; microchannel plate detector; photon counting; wavefront sensor;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Nuclear Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9499

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TNS.2005.852694

Filename

1495799