A large area cooled-CCD detector for electron microscopy

Abstract

Large area cooled-CCDs are an excellent medium for (indirectly) recording electron images and electron diffraction patterns in real time and for use in electron tomography; real-time imaging is extremely useful in making rapid adjustments in the electron microscope. CCDs provide high sensitivity (useful for minimising dosage to radiation-sensitive biological specimen), good resolution, stable performance, excellent dynamic range and linearity and a reasonably fast readout. We have built an electron imaging device based on the EEV 1152 by 814 pixel CCD which is controlled from a unix based SUN Sparestation operating under X-Windows. The incident 100 kV electrons are converted to visible light in a 0.5 mm thick YAG single crystal which is imaged through a lens on to the CCD. The CCD electronics is designed to be as flexible as possible and allows a wide variation in the readout speed to cater for the relatively fast application where readout noise is less critical and low readout noise applications where the extra few seconds of readout time are not significant. The CCD electronics is built in VME format which is controlled through a S-bus to VME driver. With two parallel channels of readout the whole image can be read out in ∼ 1 s (using the faster readout speed) with 16 bit precision and the image is displayed under X-Windows in a few seconds. The present readout works at 500 kHz and has a noise of ∼ 30 e rms per pixel. With a Peltier cooling device we can operate the CCD at ∼ −40°C which reduces the dark current adequately to allow exposures of up to several minutes. Several examples of patterns collected with the system on a Philips CM12 microscope will be presented.