Megapixel infrared arrays at the European Southern Observatory

Gert Finger; Peter Biereichel; Jean-Luis Lizon; Hamid Mehrgan; Manfred Meyer; Alan F. M. Moorwood; Gianalfredo Nicolini; A. Silber; Joerg Stegmeier

doi:10.1117/12.269004

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21 March 1997 Megapixel infrared arrays at the European Southern Observatory

Gert Finger, Peter Biereichel, Jean-Luis Lizon, Hamid Mehrgan, Manfred Meyer, Alan F. M. Moorwood, Gianalfredo Nicolini, A. Silber, Joerg Stegmeier

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Proceedings Volume 2871, Optical Telescopes of Today and Tomorrow; (1997) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.269004
Event: Optical Telescopes of Today and Tomorrow, 1996, Landskrona/Hven, Sweden

Abstract

For the next generation of instruments which will be used at 8 m telescopes large format arrays are needed. Better image quality obtained by adaptive optics requires sampling to higher spatial frequencies. The large field of these instruments increases the demand for array formats as large as 1024 by 1024 and beyond. For this reason ESO is committed to the development of megapixel infrared detectors. In a multimode instrument covering the 1 to 5 micrometer spectral range a detector has to fulfill very different requirements. For high resolution spectroscopy low dark current and read noise are required. For broad band thermal imaging a high well capacity is needed to reduce the speed required to read out the array before it saturates. This paper gives a status report of ESO's activities related to large format arrays. An ultrafast data acquisition system has been developed to read out large format arrays. The performance goal is to achieve shot noise limited operation in the wavelength region of lambda equals 1 to 5 micrometer. The array controller is capable of handling the high data rates generated in the thermal infrared. The design of the controller was mainly driven by the requirement to read out the 32 parallel video channels of the SBRC 1024 by 1024 InSb detector in 50 msec. The array controller can also cope with the low read noise required for flux levels of less than 1 photon/sec. A new test camera for large format arrays has also been built. First test results obtained with the Rockwell 1024 by 1024 HgCdTe array are presented. The noise and dark current performance will be discussed with regard to OH line suppression. Read speed requirements will be defined for advanced readout techniques of image sharpening applying on chip tracking in the multiple nondestructive readout mode.

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Gert Finger, Peter Biereichel, Jean-Luis Lizon, Hamid Mehrgan, Manfred Meyer, Alan F. M. Moorwood, Gianalfredo Nicolini, A. Silber, and Joerg Stegmeier "Megapixel infrared arrays at the European Southern Observatory", Proc. SPIE 2871, Optical Telescopes of Today and Tomorrow, (21 March 1997); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.269004

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