skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Analog pile-up circuit technique using a single capacitor for the readout of Skipper-CCD detectors

Journal Article · · JINST

With Skipper-CCD detectors it is possible to take multiple samples of the charge packet collected on each pixel. After averaging the samples, the noise can be extremely reduced allowing the exact counting of electrons per pixel. In this work we present an analog circuit that, with a minimum number of components, applies a double slope integration (DSI) and at the same time averages the multiple samples, producing at its output the pixel value with sub-electron noise. For this purpose, we introduce the technique of using the DSI integrator capacitor to add the skipper samples. An experimental verification using discrete components is presented, together with an analysis of its noise sources and limitations. After averaging 400 samples it was possible to reach a readout noise of 0.18 e- rms/pix, comparable to other available readout systems. Due to its simplicity and significant reduction of the sampling requirements, this circuit technique is of particular interest in particle experiments and cameras with a high density of Skipper-CCDs.

Research Organization:
Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
DOE Contract Number:
AC02-07CH11359
OSTI ID:
1833280
Report Number(s):
FERMILAB-PUB-21-544-AE-SCD; arXiv:2108.09389; oai:inspirehep.net:1909118
Journal Information:
JINST, Vol. 16, Issue 11
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (17)

Results on Low-Mass Weakly Interacting Massive Particles from an 11 kg d Target Exposure of DAMIC at SNOLAB journal December 2020
Exploring low-energy neutrino physics with the Coherent Neutrino Nucleus Interaction Experiment journal November 2019
Single-Electron and Single-Photon Sensitivity with a Silicon Skipper CCD journal September 2017
Absolute measurement of the Fano factor using a Skipper-CCD
  • Rodrigues, Dario; Andersson, Kevin; Cababie, Mariano
  • Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 1010 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2021.165511
journal September 2021
Sub-electron readout noise in a Skipper CCD fabricated on high resistivity silicon journal May 2012
Design tradeoffs between surface and buried-channel FET's journal March 1985
SENSEI: First Direct-Detection Constraints on Sub-GeV Dark Matter from a Surface Run journal August 2018
SENSEI: Direct-Detection Constraints on Sub-GeV Dark Matter from a Shallow Underground Run Using a Prototype Skipper CCD journal April 2019
SENSEI: Direct-Detection Results on sub-GeV Dark Matter from a New Skipper CCD journal October 2020
DAMIC-M experiment: Thick, silicon CCDs to search for light dark matter journal April 2020
The physics potential of a reactor neutrino experiment with Skipper CCDs: measuring the weak mixing angle journal March 2021
Low threshold acquisition controller for Skipper charge-coupled devices journal January 2021
Measurement of the read-out noise of fully depleted thick CCDs conference August 2016
A low noise digital readout system for scientific charge coupled devices conference September 2017
Toward fast, low-noise charge-coupled devices for Lynx journal April 2019
The DEPFET Sensor-Amplifier Structure: A Method to Beat 1/f Noise and Reach Sub-Electron Noise in Pixel Detectors journal April 2016
Fully depleted, back-illuminated charge-coupled devices fabricated on high-resistivity silicon journal January 2003

Similar Records

A Sub-Electron-Noise Multi-Channel Cryogenic Skipper-CCD Readout ASIC
Journal Article · Thu Apr 13 00:00:00 EDT 2023 · IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers · OSTI ID:1833280

A Cryogenic Readout IC with 100 KSPS in-Pixel ADC for Skipper CCD-in-CMOS Sensors
Conference · Tue Feb 07 00:00:00 EST 2023 · OSTI ID:1833280

Characterization of skipper CCDs for cosmological applications
Conference · Sun Dec 13 00:00:00 EST 2020 · Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering · OSTI ID:1833280