Low Light Level Imaging With Commercial Charge-Coupled Devices

Abstract

Low light level imaging with commercially available CCDs has been limited by CCD availability as well as by poor performance at low signal levels by many devices constructed for consumer applications. These performance limitations usually take the form of poor charge-transfer efficiency at the low temperatures and/or high noise levels associated with charge-detection schemes that normally need to operate only near room temperature. This paper describes a commercial virtual-phase CCD and associated operating mode that allow high performance low light level imaging at low temperatures. This capability makes the described device ideally suited to both scientific and military low light level imaging applications.