Cooled Change Coupled Devices
Charge coupled devices (CCD) – a class of matrix photodetectors which are widely used. They are used in digital imaging applications: photocameras, comcoders, web cameras, phone cameras etc.
CCD is a device for the movement of electrical charge, usually from within the device to an area where the charge can be manipulated, for example conversion (converted?) into a digital value. This is achieved by shifting the signals between stages within the device one at a time. CCDs move charge between capacitive bins in the device, with the shift allowing for the transfer of charge between bins.
Hundreds of millions of CCD matrixes are made for industries, scientific and consumer applications. CDD advantage which causes their applications in broad areas is their unique performance in wide temperature conditions. From this point of view, CCD matrix is a family of uncooled devices.
However, there are special applications where such a matrix must provide very high resolution of light detection and the transformation of the very weak optical signals. These are basically scientific researches, astronomy, airspace projects, etc.
For such applications, special designs of CCD, for instance EMCCD (electron-multiplying CCD-L3Vision CCD, L3CCD or Impactron CCD) are used.
In such CCD matrices it is very important to cool deeply - to minimize thermal noise and increase the resolution of small optical signals.
For such tasks thermoelectric Peltier coolers (TECs) are widely used.
The specific requirements are the following:
- Large surface for placement of a matrix. Matrices in such applications have quite large dimensions from 10 x 10 to 30 x 30 mm² and even more.
- Deep cooling below 190-200 K.
- High accuracy temperature maintenance.
For these tasks, RMT developed a special series of multistage TECs:
In addition, RMT offers customers complete solutions - TEC mounted on standard and special packages for the CCD matrixes.
All the products are manufactured in whole conformity with the standard of reliability Telcordia GR468 Core. The modules of RMT are fully compliant with RoHS и REACH requirements.
To select a suitable solution and the optimal TEC for an application, the supporting Online TEC Assistance is available at RMT’s website. For detailed modeling and calculations the company RMT provides our customers by free software TEC Cad or iTECPad.
And contact RMT for advice and assistance.
