Evanescent microwave microscopy of thermally-damaged charge coupled devices

Evanescent Microwave Probe (EMP) scanning is used to detect thermal damage in silicon (Charge Coupled Device) CCD arrays. The CCD is a solid-state chip that turns light into electric signals and essentially functions as a camera-on-a-chip. These devices have been used on flight missions such as the Galileo mission to Jupiter and the Hubble space telescope. The primary interest is in the amount of damage these devices can withstand and remain functional. Evanescent microwave probes have the unique ability to image subsurface features under semi-conducting or dielectric materials. This nondestructive evaluation technique will allow fast and highly accurate surface/subsurface scans of damaged CCD array devices.