Characterization of Quanta Image Sensor Pump-Gate Jots With Deep Sub-Electron Read Noise

Author

Jiaju Ma ; Starkey, Dakota ; Rao, Arun ; Odame, Kofi ; Fossum, Eric R.

Author_Institution

Thayer Sch. of Eng., Dartmouth Coll., Hanover, NH, USA

Volume

3

Issue

6

fYear

2015

Firstpage

472

Lastpage

480

Abstract

Characterization of quanta image sensor pixels with deep sub-electron read noise is reported. Pixels with conversion gain of $423mu text{V}$ /e- and read noise as low as 0.22e- r.m.s. were measured. Dark current is 0.1e-/s at room temperature, and lag less than 0.1e-. This is one of the first works reporting detailed characterization of image sensor pixels with mean signals from sub-electron (0.25e-) to a few electrons level. Such pixels in a nearly-conventional CMOS image sensor process will allow realization of photon-counting image sensors for a variety of applications.

Keywords

CMOS image sensors; integrated circuit noise; photon counting; CMOS image sensor process; conversion gain; dark current; deep subelectron read noise; electron level; photon-counting image sensor; quanta image sensor pixel; quanta image sensor pump-gate jot; Bit error rate; CMOS image sensors; Dark current; Histograms; Noise; CMOS Image Sensor; CMOS image sensor; High Conversion Gain; Jot Device; Low Dark Current; Low Read Noise; Photon Counting; Quanta Image Sensor; high conversion gain; jot device; low dark current; low read noise; photon counting; quanta image sensor;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Devices Society, IEEE Journal of the

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

2168-6734

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JEDS.2015.2480767

Filename

7273747