Observatory deployment and characterization of SAPHIRA HgCdTe APD arrays

Dani Atkinson; Donald Hall; Christoph Baranec; Ian Baker; Shane Jacobson; Reed Riddle

doi:10.1117/12.2056807

23 July 2014 Observatory deployment and characterization of SAPHIRA HgCdTe APD arrays

Dani Atkinson, Donald Hall, Christoph Baranec, Ian Baker, Shane Jacobson, Reed Riddle

Proceedings Volume 9154, High Energy, Optical, and Infrared Detectors for Astronomy VI; 915419 (2014) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2056807
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2014, Montréal, Quebec, Canada

Abstract

We report the performance of Selex ES' SAPHIRA APD arrays from both laboratory characterization and telescope deployment. The arrays are produced using the MOVPE production method, allowing for solid state engineering and thus produce superior performance to similar liquid phase epitaxy efforts. With an avalanche gain slightly over 50 and read noise of ~9e^-, the detectors are easily capable of single-frame sub-electron read noise, and the 32 output readout and flexible windowing allow an excellent readout speed. Gain-corrected dark current/glow is found to be 10-20 e^-/s at low bias, and drops below basline at high avalanche gains. The detectors were also tested on-sky at both IRTF on Maunakea and the 1.5-m telescope at Palomar Observatory, demonstrating that the SAPHIRA is an ideal device for both tip-tilt NGS guiding and infrared lucky imaging, in the latter providing diffraction-limited resolution for the 3-meter IRTF without the benefit of adaptive optics correction.

Citation Download Citation

Dani Atkinson, Donald Hall, Christoph Baranec, Ian Baker, Shane Jacobson, and Reed Riddle "Observatory deployment and characterization of SAPHIRA HgCdTe APD arrays", Proc. SPIE 9154, High Energy, Optical, and Infrared Detectors for Astronomy VI, 915419 (23 July 2014); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2056807

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