Dr Daniel Weatherill

Abstract:

We describe the commissioning of a system which has been built to investigate optimal operation of CCDs for the LSST telescope. The test system is designed for low vibration, high stability operation and is capable of illuminating a detector in flat-field, projected spot, projected pattern and Fe-55 configurations. We compare and describe some considerations when choosing a gain calibration method for CCDs which exhibit the brighter-fatter effect. An optimisation study on a prototype device of gain and full well with varying back substrate bias and gate clock levels is presented.

Abstract:

The shape and size of the stored charge packet within a CCD pixel after exposure has implications for optimal device operation, susceptibility to radiation damage and modelling of dynamic charge collection effects such as the “Brighter-Fatter Effect”. Above the full well capacity, phenomena such as bleed trails and surface charge loss occur. In this paper we discuss why accurately reproducing saturation effects in simulations based on electrostatics is difficult, and present an approach to modelling the storage of charge in CCD pixels using commercial semiconductor simulation software. We suggest experimental measurements which can be connected to such modelling. Full well measurements on a thick, high resistivity back illuminated sensor (the e2v CCD261) are presented.