Statistics of single-electron signals in electron-multiplying charge-coupled devices

Author

Plakhotnik, Taras ; Chennu, Arjun ; Zvyagin, Andrei V.

Author_Institution

Sch. of Phys. Sci., Univ. of Queensland, Brisbane, Qld., Australia

Volume

53

Issue

4

fYear

2006

fDate

4/1/2006 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

618

Lastpage

622

Abstract

Electron-multiplying charge coupled devices promise to revolutionize ultrasensitive optical imaging. The authors present a simple methodology allowing reliable measurement of camera characteristics and statistics of single-electron events, compare the measurements to a simple theoretical model, and report camera performance in a truly photon-counting regime that eliminates the excess noise related to fluctuations of the multiplication gain.

Keywords

cameras; charge-coupled devices; electron multipliers; photon counting; single electron devices; camera characteristics; camera performance; electron-multiplying charge-coupled devices; photon counting; single-electron events; single-electron signals; statistical analysis; ultrasensitive optical imaging; Cameras; Charge-coupled image sensors; Fluctuations; Gain measurement; Noise measurement; Optical imaging; Optical noise; Performance gain; Reliability theory; Statistics; Charge coupled device (CCD); low-light level imaging; noise; photon counting; single-photon detection;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Devices, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9383

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TED.2006.870572

Filename

1610887